


And Sing of Sweet Surrender

by sparrowshellcat



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/F, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-02-20
Updated: 2014-05-04
Packaged: 2018-01-21 23:27:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 17
Words: 90,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1567859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparrowshellcat/pseuds/sparrowshellcat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone knows what happened when Jess died. What no one knows is what happened after.</p><p>So begins a fanfiction written by Jude Applegate about the untold story of what happened to Jessica Moore from Carver Edlund's Supernatural books after her death. A fanfic she doesn't really know why she's writing, and no matter how much she tries to control it, she has no idea why her characters most definitely have a mind of their own.</p><p>Jess rises from the grave, and sort of tumbles into the hunting lifestyle, which also seems to include the bed of a woman named Meg, then later, to tumble headlong into a relationship with a wiser hunter than she, a woman named Jo. And then an angel tells her why she's alive - to save the world... by saving Sam.</p><p>But it's just a fanfiction, right?</p><p>Until Chuck writes a scene in his most recent novel where Jess appears, and figures out exactly what is going on.</p><p>This is Jude's fanfic... and it's also the Acts of the Apostle Jessica.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

 

Everyone knows what happened when Jess died. What no one knows is what happened after.

Judith Appleford, called Jude, had never really been a person who had did important things in her life. 

Ever.

Despite a frustratingly hefty education (along with a hefty debt load to go with it) she worked at a coffee shop, and the only thing she seemed to be doing with her education was reading through manuscripts for her friend Sera Siege, who had lofty goals of running a publishing company, though she had only managed to create small run novellas so far. Armed with a red pen and a large mug of coffee, she would spend her breaks at work, hacking them apart and letting out her passive aggressive rage at her irritating customers. 

Most of the time, the work was terrible. Achingly terrible, even. Jude usually tried to pretend that there was potential in those manuscripts, but usually, there wasn’t even that.

But there was something about the one Sera had finally handed to her that made her heart start to beat faster, pounding in her ears, and for a few moments her vision seemed to blur at the edges, creating tunnel vision, focused completely and wholly on the pages before her. The words seemed to sing to her, and, panting slightly, she called her friend and demanded that they be printed. 

As is.

No editing.

Sera pointed out that they were actually pretty terrible stories – a great kernel of an idea, but with absolutely terrible execution – but Jude insisted that this was not the point. They had to be spread to the world.

So Sera read more of the book. Her initial arguments melted away, and soon, Carver Edlund’s Supernatural books – though they sold terribly – were unleashed.

Little did Jude know that this – and what she was about to do next – was about to shape the path of the future.

\----

_ On a pillow of your bones  
I will lay across the stones _

Jess drew in a quick gasp of breath, eyes snapping open as she rose slightly off the pillows. 

Eyes open so wide that there was white all around her irises, she shook. The air around her was stale and musty – dirty and undisturbed and almost difficult to breathe, and faintly tinged, oddly with the smell of smoke and sulfur. 

Fingers clenched tightly, she screamed, loud and long and piercing, until her voice faded and cracked and she fell silent.

Shaking, she slumped back into the pillows in the darkness, breath rasping as she struggled to figure out where she was, what had happened. How in hell was she not burned up?! She remembered so clearly being pinned to the ceiling, gaping down at her boyfriend, trying to get free. She could remember the golden flash of eyes of the intruder in her home, she could remember the pain…

Confused, she sat up, then let out a cry of pain when she slammed her forehead against a wooden barrier, and slumped back, before reaching up to touch the obstruction. Running her fingertips along the satin, she frowned, confused. It seemed to cover her completely, and seemed to be all around her, in fact, and the more she reached, the more she realized that she was in a rectangular box, lined fully in satin and pillows.

She was in a coffin.

Her breath started speeding up, and Jess tried not to hyperventilate, but it was hard not to, because she was freaking out. After all, the last thing she remembered was being burned alive on her boyfriend’s ceiling, and then next she wakes up in a coffin. This seemed like a perfectly normal reason to start freaking out.

Taking a few minutes to just try and breathe in the stale air, trying to force herself calm, attempting not to use up her limited air supply, Jess finally got herself settled down. Eyes closed so that she only had to see the darkness of the back of her own eyelids, instead of the blackness of the tiny enclosed space, she considered what her next move was going to be. She couldn’t just sit here. For whatever reason, she was alive now, and trapped in a coffin. And while she might not have been an expert on getting out of one, she was pretty sure they weren’t a great storehouse of air.

Sitting up as much as she could, Jess fumbled to find an edge, and tried to push on the lid, hopefully.

It shifted, a little.

Hopeful, she sat up a little more, pushing again. Again, it shifted, but just the tiniest amount. Frustrated, she rolled onto her hands and knees, and pressed her back against the lid, straightening her arms. 

The lid slowly opened a little, and loose dirt tumbled in around the edges of the coffin, little rocks and bits of dirt hitting her hands as she pushed harder, trying to get out of the hole, desperately. In little fits and starts, she finally pushed it up enough that she was able to struggle out from under the heavy lid, and crawlthrough the thin layer of loose dirt. 

Panting, she threw the lid the rest of the way open, and slumped against the dirt wall that rose up beside her. There was only a thin layer of dirt over the dark glossy wood, along with about twenty five scattered roses. 

Confused, she climbed up onto the edges of the wooden coffin, then jumped, grabbing at the edge of the hole.

She missed the first time, and grunted in frustration before trying it again. This time, she caught the edge of the grass-lined hole, and struggled up, trying to lift herself out. She wanted out of this damn grave, wanted to be away from it as quickly as possible. Panting and struggling, Jess managed to get her toes caught in the dirt, and pushed herself up, finally, flopping onto the grass, panting. 

Rolling onto her back, Jess sobbed in relief, tear tracks running through the dirt on her cheeks to leave muddy trails, fingers woven in the grass as she trembled, weak. 

The sun was setting in a glorious flag of red and gold, beautiful and vibrant, and the wind was whispering around her, through her dirt dusted hair, through the grass, ruffling the white sundress she had been buried in. It was smeared in dirt now, and she had no idea why in the world someone had buried her in it – she’d only bought the damn thing because her boyfriend had insisted she looked beautiful in it. She hated this dress.

Panting, Jess sat up, trying to figure out what exactly had happened.

The grave was freshly dug, and there were even tire tracks leading to and from the hole that had been left by the back hoe that had been used. There were footprints all about the hole in the soft dirt, and there was a velvet rope barrier around the grave itself to prevent people from tumbling into it unawares. 

Suddenly the roses and the dirt made perfect sense. She’d been buried that day. And her friends and family – presumably – had thrown them in for the whole ceremonial funerary bit. 

Frustrated, she pushed herself up, ran her hand through her hair, then set out to find some help.

Maybe a drink.

Wishing she didn’t look quite so much like she had crawled out of a grave, Jess slipped into a convenience store, quietly. The clerk gaped at her, jaw hanging slightly. “Hi,” Jess said, voice cracking again. Ah, the screaming would have done that. Clearing her throat, she said again, “Hi. Do you have a bathroom that I could use?”

“Um…” the guy hesitated. “We’re not supposed to let customers use it…”

“I was attacked,” she lied, easily. Jess even managed to produce a few tears, for authenticity. “Some guys just beat me up. I just – I just want to take care of – of my…”

He scrambled forward, almost tripping as he rounded the counter, and waved for her to follow him, spewing out a litany of apologies and concern and promises of ‘just this way’…

She followed him, and smiled quickly – if slightly tearfully – at him for a moment and slipped into the bathroom.

Jess’s smile faded the moment she was inside the room, and she leaned closer to the little, cracked mirror over the sink, assessing the damage. There was no trace that she had ever been burned in a fire, and while she would like to think that this was a good thing, she was also pretty sure that something pretty major had occurred to make it this way. She was covered in dirt, as she’d suspected she would be, but she didn’t seem to be injured.

Except for her left wrist. 

Confused, she ran her fingertips across the shiny, smooth burn, like some fire elemental had wrapped their fingers around her wrist and pulled her out of that grave themselves, leaving behind their handprint seared into her skin. There was no other mark that she could find, but there was this burn, fresh. It didn’t hurt, but it did feel strange when she touched it. 

She shuddered, and grabbed for the slightly grubby looking first aid kit hanging from the hook beside the sink, and carefully bandaged up her wrist, trying to hide the wound. She didn’t think it was going to bleed or anything, but she didn’t really want anyone seeing it.

And by ‘anyone’, she meant ‘herself’. She never wanted to see that thing again.

\----

 

The angels thought that bringing Jess back from the dead would solve all of their problems. 

They were long sighted and tended to look to the future rather than the present, but the angels always seemed to forget that humans were never as simple as they always liked to believe that they were. 

The rebirth of Jess solved problems.

Just not the ones it was supposed to solve.

\----

 

__And in your soul,  
They poked a million holes.  
But you never let them show,  
C’mon it’s time to go

Half wearing, half wrapped in a convenience store clerk’s jacket, Jess shivered as she looked up at what little remained of what had been her home. 

What had once been the apartment she had shared with Sam was now an empty maw, dark and hollow. There were still yellow crime scene tapes looped across the front of the building, and even from here she could see that nothing could be saved of her belongings, her home. And who knew if Sam had gotten out of there at all? 

Wiping at her eyes, she shuddered, and headed for the front door of the building, slipping in. 

Pulling on every trick she had learned while living there – the “secured” front door never really locked properly, and could actually be opened if you just lifted the door handle just right – she slipped into the hallway, then upstairs. Peeling the “Fire Marshall’s Seal – Do Not Break” sticker enough off the door that she was able to push the unlocked door open, Jess slipped into her apartment. 

As she’d suspected, the bulk of the damage had been concentrated to the ceiling, which was why sections of the roof were now completely open to the stars and the streetlights outside, but the floor seemed steady enough that she was still able to pad forward. To her relief, not everything had actually burned, though it all smelled of soot and a lot the contents of the apartment had been severely smoke damaged. No one would ever use their beautiful couches again, or that antique dresser she’d been so proud of when she’d found second hand for a steal. All of her and Sam’s work on this place was lost now. It had been so fleeting, and had disappeared in one night.

Shivering, she checked their closet, fearing the worst. The bedroom was the most damaged room – which made sense, she supposed, since she’d been pinned to the ceiling when it happened.

Trying not to think about the fire – it creeped her out every time she did – Jess flicked through the clothes, which all reeked of sulfur and smoke, but were there and intact. She could clean these, and at least they weren’t the things someone had deemed fit to bury her in. 

Changing into a pair of jeans that had been buried at the back of the closet and smelled the least, she tugged on a tank top, then one of Sam’s old plaid shirts, burying her nose in the collar for a moment. Even over the smell of the fire, she could detect a little of the smell of Sam, which was at least somewhat comforting. God. She hoped he’d gotten away. There was a part of her that liked to pretend that he might have still been away with his brother – Dean, was it? – while they were trying to find their father. But she couldn’t completely fool herself. The yellow eyed intruder had done this, he’d said, to torture Sam. And she’d seen Sam.

So hoping that he hadn’t been there was just wishful thinking, but to hope that he hadn’t been killed… well. At least that was possible.

Shoving a few other things in a backpack, Jess sat finally on the edge of the old coffee table, considering the burned wreckage of her home, eyes sliding over pictures nearly unrecognizable now because of the blistering heat that had melted the plastic, over decorative items she’d once placed with pride and now were mangled messes. The leaves of the ivy plant she’d had since first year were scorched and demolished, and the linen tablecloth her mother had given her was burned beyond repair. 

Sighing heavily, Jess tried to figure out what had happened. 

She wasn’t stupid. She knew that the yellow eyes on her attacker had not been a trick of the light, or something. The man had yellow eyes. Very yellow eyes, which was completely alarming and really freaky. And very unnatural.

Tapping her toes on the scorched rug, trying to keep herself from freaking out, she considered this. Jess probably knew more than she should have, because while Sam had thought he was super stealthy and that he’d hidden all of his secret little darknesses, he wasn’t terribly good at that. He had nightmares – and talked in his sleep – and he kept odd little weapons hidden in the house. He had put salt under the doorframes, she had noticed ages ago, and there were a couple small parcels tucked in strange places like under the bed, containing a mixture of ingredients she’d never seen before.

So while she might not know everything, she had done enough research based on Sam’s trail of evidence, and she knew enough that this was not… normal.

At first, she’d started to believe he was just superstitious, and over compensating way too much. But that man that had invaded her apartment had had golden eyes, and she knew, without a doubt, that he had not been human. She had no idea what he was, but he sure wasn’t human. 

And that thought scared her.

A lot.

Sam could be dead, could be alive, but no matter what, she was dead. As far as the rest of the world, her mother, her father, her brothers, her friends, even Sam, everyone was concerned, she was dead. Kaput. Still under the dirt in that damned wooden box, and soon she’d start to rot. So if she came out of the apartment now and said, ‘By the way, not dead’, there were going to be awkward questions. Difficult questions. Questions with experiments and doctors and – that was not going to happen.

Frustrated and confused, she keened, slumping forward as she started to cry, trembling.

She was dead. She was, therefore, not a person anymore. Who the hell was she, if Jessica Moore didn’t exist anymore, if Jessica Moore was in the ground? She had come back from the dead, somehow, with no understandable rhyme or reason, and she was terrified of what this meant. Why was she alive?

Sitting up again, she wiped at her eyes, smearing soot on her face again, and let out a shaky breath.

Time to find out.

\---

 

 

_ And from the moment I saw her  
I was hell bent with heaven sent _

Jess thought it would be more difficult to find Sam than it was. 

Sitting in a little internet café in Sacramento, she sipped at her French Vanilla cappuccino as she scrawled notes in a notebook she’d brought with her, and a laptop that wasn’t strictly hers. But hell, if she was dead, then who cared what she did? Okay, yes, maybe the law enforcement might not recognize the whole ‘but officer, I’m actually dead’ defense, but she was pretty much running on impulse and instinct right now. She’d consider the consequences of this later. 

Sam was, of all things, keeping his Facebook updated.

It wasn’t like before, when they’d been living together at home, but there were still comments on friend’s messages, and every once in a while, a note about something he’d done. Usually it was about something someone else had said. 

Oddly, he never seemed to make comments about her. At all, even though her own Facebook page had apparently been filled with hundreds of comments. Friends she barely even knew had come out of the woodwork to tell her that they were sorry she died… this was bullshit. Jess was fairly sure that most people didn’t get to see their own Facebook rest in peace messages after their death, but this… this was just far beyond anything she had expected.

But that was hardly the point, was it? The point was that she was trying to find Sam, and he was stupidly easy to get information from. Hacking his own damn account, she discovered that he was going to visit Zach and Rebecca, so that gave her a good starting point. 

Leaning back, she stretched her arms towards the ceiling, frowning slightly. Stretching meant that she could see the fresh bandages she’d wrapped around her burn. It didn’t seem to be fading. If anything, the burn seemed as fresh and new today as it had the first day since she’d been pulled from the ground, and that was weeks ago, now. There was something not quite… natural about that wound, and it bothered her. But there was no explanation for a burned handprint that she could find, anywhere, no matter how fringe theory she went with her investigation.

“Excuse me… do I know you?”

Jess started, and looked up at the other woman standing beside her table, with short blond hair. “Ah… I doubt it.”

“Are you sure?” the girl frowned, pondering Jess. “You have a really familiar face…”

“Maybe I just have one of those faces,” Jess said tightly, trying to place the other herself. She didn’t recognize her, so likely this girl wasn’t about to say something about having had a class together at school, or something. But her photo had been printed in a few papers after the fire, so there was a good chance this girl would recognize her from those. “Sorry, dunno what to tell you.”

“Can I sit?” the other asked, brightly. 

“Ah… I guess.” Jess sighed softly, figuring she was going to be free of this stranger as soon as she hopped on the Greyhound taking her towards Zach and Rebecca soon enough. “Go ahead.”

The other sat, then offered her right hand. “Hi. My name’s Meg.”

“…Jess.” She said slowly, taking the other’s hand.

“Oh, I’ve always liked that name,” she beamed. “You even look like a Jess. I am sure I know you, though…”

She shrugged. “Maybe you saw me in a dream, or something.”

She considered that, pondering the thought. 

Rolling her eyes slightly, Jess rested her elbow on the table and her chin in her hand. “That is, if you believe in that kind of thing. Some people believe that you can see your future in your dreams, some people don’t. I suppose that all comes down to what kind of person you are.”

“I’m the kind of person who believes in things unseen,” Meg smirked. “So I guess I do. I guess the appropriate question then is whether or not your legs hurt.”

Jess blinked at her. “…excuse me?”

“From running through my dreams all night,” Meg drawled, amused. 

Despite herself, she snorted, shaking her head slightly. Picking up her large paper cup, she sipped on her now rapidly cooling cappuccino, nose crinkling slightly at the taste of it when cold. “I’ll have to consider that. I haven’t felt any extra fatigue.”

Laughing softly, she grinned at Jess, amused. “Are you sure we’ve never met?”

Shaking her head, Jess set the cold cup of cappuccino aside. “Sorry, Meg, I don’t recognize you at all. So I don’t think we have. I have a great memory for faces. “

Meg considered that, sipping slowly on her own drink, which was still steaming. “Never mind, I’m sure it’ll come to me, later, why you look so familiar. So where are you going?”

“Going?” she looked up.

“Well, you only have the duffel and the computer, and you are in the Starbucks right beside the Greyhound station. I’m pretty sure the only people who drink coffee here are either those who work at the bus station or those about to go somewhere. And since you really don’t look the type to be working at a bus station… where are you going?”

“North, at the moment,” she shrugged slightly, toying with the mouse pad of her computer. “We’ll see, after.”

“Heh, I’m going north too. I guess we’ll be on the same bus.” Meg smiled at her faintly.

She winced internally. So much for getting rid of the other woman. “I guess so.”

“Need a travelling companion?” the other drawled.

“I guess so… it shouldn’t be much of a trip, really. Three hours north… that’s not bad.” Jess hesitated, considering that. “I’ve been on much worse bus trips in my life.”

“Me too,” Meg agreed, cheerfully. 

The other’s seriously cheerful attitude was starting to get to her. Jess was usually a very cheerful person, , serious only when she needed to be, and light hearted. But the problem now was that, trying to track down her errant boyfriend to have him explain why, exactly, she was dead, everything seemed pretty serious. There just didn’t seem to be much point in frivolity and light heartedness, not now. 

Sighing softly, Jess nodded. “Okay.”

“You look like you have the weight of the world on your shoulders,” the other woman said, gently, considering her. “Like everything has been building for weeks, and now it’s threatening to boil over onto you.”

Jess hesitated. “A pretty good observation, actually.”

“You wanna talk about it?” she asked softly.

“Ah – I dunno…” Jess hesitated, trying to think exactly how she could address this issue and not sound like a crazy person. After all, perfectly sane, perfectly normal people were not plucked from the grave and dropped back into the land of the living after they’d been dead the better part of a week. 

“Come on.” Meg smiled. “I’m a good listener. Tell me your troubles.”

“My boyfriend is missing,” she said at last.

“Missing?” she repeated, sipping at her coffee, watching Jess with avid, interested eyes. “Like… he went on a weekend with the boys and actually disappeared, or he’s missing in the sense of he didn’t come home one day and now you have no idea where the snake has disappeared to?”

“Went out for a weekend with his brother, to see if they could find their father, then… no idea where he is now.”

“Ouch.” Meg hissed. “That’s harsh.”

“Mmm. And to make it even better, there was a fire a few weeks ago, and our apartment was actually destroyed. Full on gutted and emptied by flames and everything, and… everything was destroyed. Any attempt at finding his brother’s phone number hidden somewhere in the apartment is gone now, since, you know, the whole place is gone. I was barely able to get some clothes and some things, but… everything’s gone, and I’m not even sure that my boyfriend even knows that the place was destroyed.”

“Ouch.” She blinked. “That’s… completely terrible, Jess!”

“I know,” she murmured, picking at the table. 

“What about family? Yours, or his?”

“I have no idea how to contact his family, and mine…” Mine think I’m dead and buried six feet under with all the roses they brought me. “It’s complicated.”

“Mmm, isn’t family always?” she laughed softly, then glanced at her watch, hissing. “Shit, swe’re gonna be late if we don’t leave really soon… we really need to go.”

Jess nodded, quickly, and stood, tossing her half empty cold cup of coffee in the trash. Flicking the laptop shut, she shoved it in the oversized purse bag thing she was carrying now, and tossed it over her shoulder, making sure to get her ticket and all out and ready. A moment later, she blinked in confusion at Meg, who was holding a white paper cup out to her, steam rising gently from it. “…what’s this?”

“You were drinking French Vanilla, right?” Meg smirked. “I got you a new one.”

“…thanks,” she blinked, slowly accepting it.

“C’mon, travellin’ buddy. Let’s go get on that bus of ours.”

\----

 

 

“I dunno, Jude, it’s… angels? Carver Edlund hasn’t even put angels in the books before, seriously, there are no angels in the Supernatural verse, you know that.” 

Slumped back in the living room of her best friend’s apartment, Jude sighed, quietly. “I know.”

“Why are you showing me this, anyway?” Sera looked up from the sheath of printed papers, the ink clearly wearing out in the printer, leaving the black letters streaked and partially unreadable. “Do you expect me to publish it, or something? Because you know that brings us into all kinds of legal issues…”

“No, no, no… I don’t want to get it published, are you kidding?” Jude flushed. “I just… you’re my best friend, Sera. I just wanted you to read it.”

She frowned, considering the pages. “Are you gonna finish it?”

“Of course I’m gonna finish it. I hate leaving stories unfinished, you know that,” she sighed, sipping at her coffee.

“You know it’s kinda terrible, right?”

Jude looked up, scowling. “Thanks a lot, Sera.”

“That’s not what I meant, come on…” Sera sighed, heavily. “I mean, in terms of writing skill entirely, it’s… well, it’s comparable to your usual writing…”

“So it’s shite,” she sighed. 

“It’s not shite, it’s just… it needs work, you know? But whatever, that’s not what I’m saying is terrible, Jude. It’s just…” she brandished the papers at her friend. “Way to demolish canon, huh?”

“It’s fanfiction, fanfiction tends to demolish canon,” she murmured.

“Not like this, come on!” Sera groaned. “No one knows these books better than Carver Edlund, me, and you, Jude. You’ve read every one of these books like… fifty times. You understand them. And yet you write a story where Jessica is brought back from the dead?! I mean, come on! You know how important Jess’ death is, not her life. She was a nice girl in life, sure, but in death, she was this huge shaping figure for Sam’s psyche, for his brain, for how he deals with things. I mean, you’ve read Bloody Mary, right?”

“It’s my favourite book, and you know it,” she muttered, picking at invisible little lint balls on her sleeve. 

“Right, so then you know how important Sam’s guilt over Jess’ death is. For Pete’s sake, Jude, it almost got him killed because he felt so guilty, and now you write a story where she goes toddling off to meet him?”

“…yeah,” Jude murmured quietly. 

“I mean, is it just because you think Jess is hot? Cause I remember you said that you had a great idea for the perfect actress to play her, because she had the perfect long, gorgeous legs, and I know you totally like blondes, so – “

“That is not it! It has nothing to do with Jess being hot! Sera!”

She snorted, amused, and shook her head. “And who is this… Meg character? I mean… you write about her like she’s really important, but… you know how badly original characters do in fanfiction, right? I mean, you couldn’t decide to have her run into some character whose actually been in the books?” 

“I dunno,” she murmured, quietly. “I just… had to write her. You know what it’s like, you’re just writing, and… things happen.”

“I guess.” Sera frowned, then handed the sheath of papers over. “Here, take these back. Clearly the story’s not finished yet, so…”

“You’re right,” Jude agreed, twisting the pages in her hands. “It’s not finished.”

“….does Jess find Sam in this story of yours?”

“I don’t know.” She admitted, quietly. “I don’t feel like I’m writing this story, Sera. I feel like it’s demanding to be written, and I’m just the one with the computer. I just… I have to write it.”

“Hm. Well, let me know. I just kinda wanna know.” Sera shrugged. “See how much you fuck up our little canon.”

“Oi, I’m not actually writing about Sam n’ Dean,” she flushed, embarrassed.

“Yeah, yeah, but you’re writing about a character that’s supposed to die, and here, in your little fic world, she’s alive and kicking. Nice way to bring her back from the dead, though – though whose handprint is that?” Sera stood, heading to her desk, and frowned slightly, glancing back at Jude. “Clearly it’s pretty important, even if Jess is hiding it…”

“I know,” she murmured. “It’s important. It is. But I have no idea whose it is.”

“Is it an angel’s?” Sera frowned. “You mentioned angels at one point…”

“Oh, I doubt that,” she snorted. “I mean, angels is one thing, but angels that burn handprints into people and raise them from the dead? That ain’t happening. I don’t even know why I put in that line about angels… I should really just take that out, it doesn’t make any sense, anyway.”

“Well… it may make sense later,” Sera shrugged, then perked up. “Oh! I have something for you!”

“Oh yeah?” Jude looked up.

“A copy of the new book….” She grinned, handing over a glossy covered paperback, grinning. “And the next manuscript. Need you to get that red pen of yours warmed up.”

“Heh, guess the fanfic will have to take a break for a bit,” Jude took the sheath of papers, fanning through the pages for a moment. “It’s gonna be good enough to make up for the last two, right? Because at least this one,” she brandished the new paperback, titled Home, “was better than Bugs, but it wasn’t that great either. I mean, yes, yes, the whole backstory of John and Mary and what happened to her was seriously important and all, I get that, but not a lot happened in this book.”

“I haven’t read it yet.” Sera admitted, still leaning on her desk. “But it’s called Asylum… that’s gotta be a good sign, right?”

“Good point,” Jude nodded, quietly, flicking through the pages for a moment, reading a random snippet of the text, her eyes widening substantially. “Holy shit.”

“What?” the other leaned forward, frowning slightly. “What is it?”

“…from the sounds of this, Bloody Mary might have a replacement for my favourite book,” she murmured, impressed.  
   


[Part](http://sparrowshellcat.dreamwidth.org/39515.html) Two

 

  



	2. Chapter 2

_You will choke, choke on the air you try to breathe  
It kicks like a sleep twitch_

The bus had pulled into town later than Jessica had expected, and had headed down the street, duffel over her shoulder, hoping to find a cheap hotel. The bus driver had pointed her to one, but she wasn’t entirely sure she was going to be able to get as far away as that, right now. She was wiped.

She wasn’t entirely sure, to be honest, how, when she found herself walking down the street in search of low-cost accommodations, that she found herself walking alongside Meg.

The other woman had her ipod earbuds in, creating an illusion of privacy, but she’d had those in most of the bus ride, too, and that hadn’t really stopped her from carrying on cheerful conversations with Jess as they rode, albeit at a slightly higher volume than she might have spoken in without them on. Meg was humming, quietly, along with a song that Jess dimly remembered.

She sort of remembered liking it.

“She left her father’s castle gates, she left her fair young lover,” Meg actually started singing, quietly, mostly under her breath. “And he whistled and he sang til the green woods rang…”

“And he won the heart of a lady,” Jess murmured under her breath.

“What was that?” she looked up, startled.

“Sorry,” Jess muttered, flushed. “I just recognized the song.”

“Really?” Meg tugged her earbuds out of her ears, flicking the music off before focusing properly on Jess. “I didn’t think many people would recognize that song. Guess we have more in common than I would have expected.”

She smiled faintly. “Heh. Guess I’m a mystery wrapped in a riddle wrapped in an enigma.”

“Churchill, right?”

“Hmm?” Jess blinked, glancing at the other woman.

“It was Churchill, who said that line first, right?”

“Yeah,” Jess nodded, actually sort of impressed that the other actually recognized that. Though she used to be surrounded by other students almost constantly, she had sort of gotten used to some – many, really – of the people around her having Terminal Airport Syndrome – that is, everything sort of just went over their heads. “Yeah, it was Churchill. He left a lot of brilliant quotes behind, actually.”

“So I’ve heard,” Meg smiled up at her.

“So, ah…” Jess cleared her throat, slightly flushed. The attention felt kind of strange – she’d been fairly invisible since the fire. No one seemed to pay much attention to her. “Where are you going?”

“Long term, or at the moment?” Meg drawled.

“Both, I guess,” she laughed softly. “Mostly the latter.”

“In the long term, I’m planning on taking a Kerouac-esque journey through the country, hoping to find myself on the road. In the short term, I’m just hoping to find a place to crash for the night. I’m sick of sleeping on the floor of bus stations.”

Jess snorted, amused.

“You know, we could just split a room. Go halfsies.” Meg offered, lightly. “Save us both money.”

“Not really in the mood to be sharing my place right now,” she cleared her throat, afraid that this was exactly what Meg had been hoping for. It wasn’t that she was being antisocial, it was just… well, yeah, it kind of was just that she was being antisocial. She didn’t really want to be forced to be friendly.

“Okay,” the other shrugged, seeming to be remarkably lackadaisical about the whole thing. “I’m headed out pretty early in the morning, anyway, so I guess that way, I don’t have to worry about being quiet.”

“Oh, where are you going?” Jess asked, surprising herself a little by even caring.

“Indiana,” she said cheerfully. “For a little bit.”

“Any particular reason?” she asked, trying to keep the conversation casual and light, just so it wouldn’t get too serious or heavy. Spotting the motel they’d been aiming for – finally – she pointed it out, and headed into the parking lot. “Seems awfully far to go just for a piece.”

“Believe it or not, because my father wants me to meet some guy.”

“Really?” Jess glanced at her.

“Yep. I mean, I love my dad and all, but… really? Sending me several states away to meet some guy?” she scoffed. “So not my idea of fun.”

She laughed softly, sympathetic and slipped into the lobby of the motel.

“Ah,” the slightly oily looking night manager grinned at them from behind the counter. The man had to have been in his thirties, yet he was as pimply and dorky as a man half his age. He looked genuinely excited to see them, which in and of itself was actually sort of creepy. “You’re lucky you got here when you did – we’re almost all full for the night!”

“No more room at the inn, hm?” Jess quipped, trying to feel more comfortable in the awkward setting.

Meg snorted, and she felt sort of gratified.

“Huh?” the clerk blinked at her, and her heart sank again. The return of Terminal Airport Syndrome. Of course. “No, we’ve still got one room left…”

She was about to correct him on the meaning of the phrase when she caught what exactly he’d said. “Wait, you have only one room left?”

He nodded, eagerly.

Jess hesitated, glancing at Meg. “….I guess we’re staying together tonight after all.”

“Are you sure?” the shorter woman asked, managing to keep her expression fairly neutral. “I can keep walking, there might be another hotel further down the road…”

“Never mind, we can do it.” Jess shrugged, and glanced back at the oily man, who was watching them with an almost twisted sort of eagerness. “Can we get that last room, then?”

He nodded, quickly, typing in his computer.

 

 

 “One bed,” Jess sighed softly, setting her duffel down on the end of the bed. “Of course, in the only motel room left in the world, we end up with a room with one bed.”

Meg laughed softly. “We got a couch. I could sleep there.”

She hesitated, considering that. Glancing back and forth between the small and entirely uncomfortable looking couch and the rather large, fairly comfortable bed, she sighed softly. It just wasn’t fair to ask a person to do that, even if she barely knew her. Hell, Jess still wasn’t entirely sure why she was trusting a stranger she barely had met earlier that day, but something made her trust Meg. “No.” she sighed. “We can share.”

“Okay,” Meg shrugged, and dropped her backpack on the floor, tugging off her jacket. “Up to you.”

Jess nodded, and stretched. She was still stiff from the bus trip, and wanted to get all the kinks worked out if she could. Frankly, part of her just wanted to start doing some basic yoga on the strange gold shag carpet, and were she alone, she probably would have. As it was, her plan was to soak in the shower, and hopefully get some of the kinks out before she went to bed. “No, it’s okay. The bed is there for sleeping on, after all. Ah… do you need to shower, or anything? I’m planning on taking a good long soak, so…”

“No, I should be fine,” the other woman smirked at her, winking. “Take your time.”

“Right.” She nodded, digging in her bag to find a large sweatshirt, and clean underwear. She nodded at the other, then darted into the bathroom, quickly locking the door. Leaning against the door for a moment, she listened, trying to make sure that Meg wasn’t doing anything that sounded suspicious, then flicked the shower on, relaxing a little.

Slipping into the shower a few minutes later, Jess sighed softly, and sat on the floor of the tub, letting the hot water pour over her, sliding down through her hair, down her back, pooling around her legs for a moment before sliding down the drain.

Head hanging between her knees, Jess rested her wrists on her ankles, quietly, staring off into space.

She had been avoiding the silence.

She was alone, almost all of the time now, since everyone thought that she was dead, so she was fairly invisible to everyone that she slipped past. Like ships in the night, perhaps, passing people without really seeing them.

But even alone, she had lately been watching useless television on the internet and listening to music and introducing herself to new songs she’d never heard before – like folk songs her mother used to sing – in the hopes that she could fill up the silence, distract herself from her own thoughts. She didn’t want to face her own mind, and the almost cavernous silence that seemed to fill her own thoughts.

Shuddering slightly, Jess hunched over a little more, and reached over to turn the water temperature a little higher. It was cold suddenly.

Shivering, she set her knee (?) on one of her knees, focusing on the miniature whirlpool of the water spinning lazily down the drain, wondering if she could fill the silence with the water.

There were memories eating at the edge of her senses, teasing, nibbling at her subconscious. Dreams had been creeping in while she was sleeping, trying to entice her sensibilities out of simple dreams and into dangerous territory, but she struggled to keep those thoughts away, to keep from dreaming of it, time and time again. Dreams of fires and knives and blood.

Taking a deep breath, she stretched, trying to work the little kinks out of her spine, wanting to be free. She couldn’t think about this – this was territory off the map.

Here there be dragons.

Taking a deep breath, Jess closed her eyes, and slowly, carefully, focused on the memories. She didn’t want to let them wash over her unattended, and let them run riot across her mind, but… Jess had read enough books about men and women driven insane by their traumatic memories to know better than to bottle it up forever.

She had no problem remembering the fire on the ceiling. That flitted through her dreams every night, and every time she closed her eyes, she could see the orange flames bursting out across her vision.

The rise from the grave – as ominous as that sounded – was also not a problem. It was burned into her memory now.

It was what lay between the two that was hurting her.

There were flames, flashes of light, surrounding of darkness, momentary memories of pain. What confused her about it was that she was fairly sure that the memories were not of the fire, or the postmortem work, none of that. What she remembered was genuine pain. Excruciating pain. Blades and blood and fire and –

“Jess!” Meg howled, pounding on the door of the bathroom.

Confused, she was about to ask her why she was pounding when it occurred to her that she couldn’t. Because she was screaming at the top of her lungs, nails digging into her palms as she howled, voice rough and cracking as she wailed like someone had tried to gut her.

There was a splintering sound, and the door slammed open, the doorknob crashing into the wall and bouncing off of it, the whole door shaking slightly in its frame. Meg burst into the room like a bat out of hell, crouching beside the tub, and putting her hand across the other’s mouth, trying to muffle the screams. “Jess, shh, shh, stop it, stop freaking out, calm down, it’s okay, it’s okay…”

“No no no no no…” she cried, voice shifting slightly from screams to hysterical shouting, thrashing, struggling against Meg’s arms, which seemed stronger than should be possible.

“Shh, no, quiet.” She held her hand over Jess’ mouth, holding her silent. “Stop it.”

Slowly, the muffled screaming stopped, and she deflated slightly, shoulders slumping. Though her eyes were still wide and her breathing faster than it should be, Jess melted slightly into Meg. The water was still pouring down on them both, now, soaking Meg as well as her.

Reaching up, Jess tugged Meg’s hand off her mouth, and murmured, with a rough voice, “M’okay. Sorry.”

The other hesitated, but nodded, and leaned forward to flick the shower off.

Panting, she leaned back in the tub, quietly, pushing her hair back off her face, and reluctantly stood, feeling like her legs were made of jelly.

“Here, hold on, you’ll slip if you’re not careful,” Meg said, quickly, grabbing one of the large, still fluffy towels off the towel rack, and wrapped it around Jess, carefully. “Okay, lean on me a little, to make sure you don’t fall, okay?”

“You’re a lot shorter than me,” she murmured, quietly, but did as Meg asked, quietly.

“Way to rub it in,” the other smirked, but shifted the towel slightly so that it was like a hood on Jess’ head, and helped her walk towards the bedroom. Helping the taller woman onto the bed, she sat in front of her, and began carefully drying her with the towel itself. “You okay?”

Shivering, Jess nodded, quickly.

“Bullshit,” Meg smirked slightly, but used the corner of the towel to wipe Jess’ face, quietly, not saying anything about the fact that fresh water kept running down her face other than the drips from her hair. “You don’t have to tell me what happened, or what’s wrong, just relax, okay?”

“Sorry,” she murmured, relaxing a little, closing her eyes. “Hard for you to get some sleep when I’m screamin’ my head off, huh?”

The other laughed softly, and started drying Jess’ arms. “It’s okay. I’m just worried about you now.”

“M’fine,” she murmured again, lying easily.

Shaking her head, Meg finished drying Jess’ arms, and started drying the rest of her, carefully, with an easy casualness, an almost clinical efficiency. It was almost intimate, because Jess was naked, but it wasn’t romantic by any means, it was serious and quick. Finishing with the other’s feet, Meg tugged the blankets up, and gently pushed the taller woman back by her shoulders, pulling the blankets up to her chin. “Okay, there you go, all warm and snuggled in. You should sleep.”

“I don’t want to sleep.” She flushed.

“All right, then let’s watch tv or something, get your mind off of whatever it was, anyways.” Meg tugged off her soaked t-shirt, and pulled on an oversized sweatshirt. Flopping down on the bed with her, she grabbed the remote and flicked the tv on, squirming into the blankets with Jess. “Comfy? Need anything?”

Jess shook her head, shivering as she tangled her fingers in the edges of the comforter, eyes more on Meg than the television. “….thanks,” she murmured.

“Hey, no problem,” Meg shrugged, reaching over to ruffle the other’s hair. “I can handle it.”

She groaned softly, sinking fully down into the pillows, half closing her eyes, watching the tv quietly as the other woman flicked through the channels, quietly, watching as various programs flicked past her eyes. “Yeah, but… still. I shouldn’t have made you climb in the shower, and… nngh. I don’t even know. I’m sorry.”

“You just need some sleep,” the other frowned slightly as she flicked through the channels, still, not even looking at her. “You seem like a strong woman, Jess. This just seems to be a bump in your road.”

“Some bump,” she murmured, shifting onto her side to rest properly, considering that.

“Just… maybe you shouldn’t dwell on it. Think about something else.”

“Like what?” she glanced up at the other. “Use some kind of aversion therapy, you mean, to train myself to think about something better every time I think about it or something?”

“Sure,” she laughed, amused.

“Hm. I’ll think of something,” she smirked slightly, closing her eyes completely, trying not to be tugged to sleep, not wanting to have nightmares, but she did get pulled slowly into it. Dimly, hearing the sound of laughter and random jokes coming from the television, Jess slipped into darkness.

\----

 

_When your heart’s deep and dark as a well  
And everything that’s golden and green goes to hell_

“Holy shit,” Jess breathed, eyes wide as she leaned forward, peering at the television.

“Wha’ is it?” Meg came up from the bathroom, still brushing her teeth, voice muffled and sort of funny because of the toothbrush in her mouth.

Pointing at the television with her remote, Jess didn’t even look up from the screen.

“Murder?” she frowned, scrubbing.

The local media was reporting a case - at least one attempted murder and apparently a couple murders – and they had a very specific subject, a fairly good pencil sketch of they kept showing. The thing was, the fairly attractive man in the sketch was actually very familiar – he was Sam’s brother, the one she’d been introduced to that night. She’d thought he was a bit sketchy, but sure as hell not a murderer. She never would have imagined that!

“Hn. Looks like a bad deal. Hope they catch that guy,” Meg shook her head, and headed to spit in the sink in the bathroom.

“I really don’t think he would have done that…” Jess murmured, quietly, frowning as she listened to the rest of the story, then changed the channel as they started going on about rats in a local restaurant. Frowning, she flopped back against the pillows.

She was still naked as the day she was born under the blankets, which were tugged up under her armpits, covering her up enough to keep her modest, but she was, frankly, quite comfortable like this. A little awkward, considering how they’d slept and woken up, with Jess sort of curled into the other woman’s chest, holding her waist, but it was still comfortable. She didn’t really want to think of the idea of getting out of bed and getting showered, getting dressed, going out to find Sam. Well, actually, considering that news report, Sam probably wasn’t really going to be in a good mood for talking anyway. She could only imagine the frustration he’d be struggling with right now.

Jess smiled faintly, flushed as she considered her boyfriend. Ex-boyfriend? He dealt badly with stress. Very badly. But it was probably in poor taste to laugh at the idea of him yelping at his brother like a flustered housewife.

“Hey,” she called, glancing at the bathroom door. “It’s awfully late… you not heading out early this morning after all?”

“Nope. Something happened, I have another few days.” Meg threw herself down on the bed beside her, stretching wide, sweater sliding up her legs, her stomach. “Mmm. Mind sharing your room for another little bit?”

“At this point, I think I just owe you a lot. Sure.” Jess nodded.

“You don’t owe me anything,” the other woman laughed, wriggling a little as she kept stretching. “But if you really think you do, and would like to pay me back, there are surely more interesting ways to pay me back than just letting me stay in your hotel room for a few more days?”

“Virgin sacrifices?” she asked, innocently.

“You are so not a virgin, girl, don’t even lie to me,” Meg cackled, poking her in the side through the blankets.

Jess squealed, and laughed as she grabbed a pillow, and whapped Meg with it, howling in laughter as the other responded in kind. “Ha! You will fall victim to my superior pillow power! We will defeat them on the beaches – “

“No more Churchill!” the other howled in laughter, hitting Jess over the top of the head with her pillow weapon, and laughing eagerly when there was an explosion of small white feathers. “Ah! Quote someone more fun! Stop with the English Prime Ministers!”

Rolling away and whapping her in the shoulder, more feathers bursting out over the bed, Jess offered, “Girls are like pianos – when they’re not upright, they’re grand.”

Meg roared in laughter. “Who said that?!”

“Benny Hill.” She snickered, hitting her over the head with the pillow, more feathers exploding over them.

She laughed, shaking her head as she whapped her in the back of the head with hers. With a bursting of seams, the pillow completely exploded, white feathers flying everywhere through the room, covering the bed – and the two women on the bed – in a thick feathery fluff, like snow, covering them completely.

Jess giggled, and flopped back in the bed, rolling about in the feathers. “I feel like we’ve just been snowed in!”

Meg laughed, and flopped beside her, making a snow angel in the feathers. “Mmm… this is awesome. Official decision, this is the most fun I’ve had in ages.”

Smiling, she plucked one of the feathers out of the other’s hair, amused.

“Honestly?” Meg smirked. “I don’t think one feather is really gonna make that big of a difference. We’re kind of both seriously covered in mountains of feathers. One won’t really change the world.”

“You know, I don’t know about that,” Jess mused.

“What do you mean?” she considered the other woman, intrigued.

“One feather.” She held it up, considering it. “You say that it can’t change the world, but I think that one feather could change the world. I mean, think about it, if you find one feather in your clothes – just one – say at the bottom of your back, or something, that is seriously going to bother you. And if you were in some position of power for any length of time, even a single day or something, and you had that little feather in your clothes, bothering you, that could seriously change the world for a long time. What if you were just irritated enough to make one stupid comment and piss off someone in a diplomatic mission. That would seriously change the world. God, that could change everything.”

“Yeah, but that’s kind of a flawed example.” She shook her head.

“I know you say that, but think about it. One person could be one feather. And one person could completely change the world. One person could have the power or the influence or the sheer bad luck to be the one to change the world.”

“Bad luck?” Meg smirked, shifting closer to Jess, watching her.

“Yeah. I would never want to be the one who changes the world.” Jess shuddered, shaking her head.

“Why not?”

“The whole weight of the world would be on your shoulder. Literally. The entire fate of the universe would come from a single decision you make… fuck, you could destroy everything with a word, if you’re the person who changes the world like that. There are so many people who say ‘oh, I want to change the world’, but I dunno… “ Jess hesitated, shaking her head. “The idea of having the ability to change the world is fucking terrifying.”

“You’re an interesting person,” Meg murmured, considering her thoughtfully. “What if you had superpowers or something? Say you got bit by a radioactive spider, and went all Spiderman?”

“So?”

“You know, with great power comes great responsibility.” She smirked.

“With great power comes great shit,” she murmured, softly. “Have you ever noticed that superheroes get fucking slammed? They work hard, they work really hard, and if they show any evidence of being human even once, the public jumps down their throat, and jumps all over them. Suddenly they get blacked out in the media, and painted as ‘they’re terrible’ only because they screwed up once.”

“Hm.” Meg frowned slightly, considering that. “But what if you were bad to begin with? Like the Joker, or something.”

“You know how much it would stress me out to be bad all the time?” she groaned. “I want to be me. I want to be a bitch when I want to be, and a good person when I want to be, and an insignificant enough person either way that I don’t have to have people breathing down my neck watching me for either option.”

“In my experience,” the other woman drawled, “It is only those who have the ability and the power to change the world that don’t want to be the ones with the responsibility.”

She flushed. “Sweet of you to say, but I have no power.”

“Sure,” Meg murmured, watching her thoughtfully. “You seem to be a very interesting person, all honesty.”

Jess snorted, whacking the other with her pillow, throwing her arm across her eyes, and laughing as the other woman spluttered on the feathers. “Dork.”

“Yeah, yeah.” She laughed.

\----

 

_Will you feel better, better, better  
Will you feel anything at all_

Meg was gone, when Jess woke up the next day.

She was actually pretty surprised by the disappearance, even though she knew that Meg was supposed to have been heading out to meet that guy her dad wanted her to see. It had been days now, since Meg had originally said that, but she’d been here ever since, sharing this stupid little hotel room.

Showered and dressed, finally, Jess sat at her computer, and did some searching for Sam for the first time since she saw her boyfriend’s brother on the news. Frowning, she searched through all of his own accounts, amused that he’d taken money out of his own account a day previous. Seriously, Sam wasn’t really trying to disappear, was he? Because if he really was, he was failing fairly epically. He’d skipped town, which made some sense, considering his brother was wanted for murder – or rather, someone who looked exactly like his brother was wanted for murder, because she hadn’t remembered hearing anything about the name Winchester.

But those murders – which was her next topic of research – confused her.

She knew she didn’t know Sam’s brother, she’d barely encountered him once in their apartment. After he broke in to get his brother to come with him. But she knew Sam, and if Sam was continuing to travel with his brother, then she figured he couldn’t be that bad.

Certainly not a mass murderer.

These murders were vicious, too. Flicking through the newspaper articles about the killings, she hissed slightly, shaking her head. Vicious attacks of women alone at home. Dean – Dan? – had seemed like a bit of a creeper, but not in the tie up beat and murder way. God, she hoped not, anyway. Sam would never hang out with him if he was, right? But then, family ran deep, and some people made stupid decisions and stuck with people even though they shouldn’t, just because they were family.

Still.

Running her hands through her hair, she frowned at the computer screen, then flicked the computer shut, standing.

She hated the silence.

The silence was filled with just her, trying to blot it out with the noise of the television, but the voices on the screen had faded into a dull buzz in the back of her mind, and it didn’t block anything out anymore. Meg’s mere presence had filled the silence better than Jess had thought she would. Just having another person there had stopped her from thinking, because every time she thought lately, there was a niggling voice at the edge of her thoughts that said, in a hissing little evil voice, “Go back to hell.”

Jess shuddered, closing her eyes tightly, trying to focus on the black of the back of her eyelids, not on the flames dancing in her memory.

Frustrated, she checked the mini fridge. It wasn’t a perfect way of forgetting, but heading back to the bed with a handful of mini bottles, she had a moment of hope. At least this would let her lose herself in a few hours of alcohol fueled oblivion.

“Wow, Jess,” she murmured in the silence as she cracked the top off one of the bottles and knocked it back with a deep swallow. “That’s a fucking healthy attitude.”

\----

 

Jude hesitated as she was about to head out of the door, and headed into her best friend’s office, leaning in the doorway. “Hey, uh… Sera?”

The other looked up, blinking. The office of her little publishing company was on the ground floor of the small house they shared, and half the time, Sera ended up in here whether she was actually working or not. Right now, she had apparently been half asleep behind the desk. “Oh, hey… Jude. Hi. What’s up?”

She smirked slightly, and asked, “Did you have a chance to read the next chapter or so that I sent you?”

“Oh… yeah.”

The look on her best friend’s face was really not an encouraging one. “Um… so… comments? Reviews?”

“It’s boring.”

Jude blinked, and stepped properly into the little office, thumbs hooked in the strap of her messenger bag. “Really?”

“Yeah!” Sera shifted, sitting up properly. “Okay, look, you have a great character in Jess, and you have a great possibility for an amazing story, but you’ve done nothing with it. Thus far, Jess had freaked out in a shower, drank herself stupid, and done research. She has made no real effort to find Sam – nor does she really seem like she’s going to find Sam, from the way you’ve written it. And then you go and set her up with this epic chemistry with Meg, and they have this great pillow fight, which as you know is a staple of many great lesbian pornos, and… they talk. No one gets laid, no one even gets a kiss!”

Flushed, she muttered, “Well, the point of the story isn’t for just sex…”

“It should be, Jess is hot. Hell, they finally start getting close to maybe establishing something, and you send Meg off to go… meet some guy?” She grumbled, but crossed her arms, considering Jude. “I mean, think about it, you’ve created this epic backstory, but you haven’t explained the hell thing, or the angel thing, or the…. Anything. Really. It’s… slow. Like you’re setting up something for an epic Lord of the Rings novel.”

“No, I’m not,” she hesitated. “I don’t think. I’m just… I think she’s going slow to recover from… being in hell.”

“Right.” Sera frowned. “Well, that’s true… speaking of, why in hell did she go to hell? She was a good person!”

“Well, not all people believe that ‘being a good person’ is really enough to keep you out of hell,” Jude rocked back and forth from the balls of her feet to her heels, clinging tightly to her messenger bag’s strap. “So…”

“You’re not religious.”

Jude groaned. “I know. I think it was the yellow eyed demon.”

“Aaah.” She nodded. “That kinda makes sense. But – oh! The big thing!” Sera pointed firmly at her roommate. “You gave them a last name!”

“I did?” Jude blinked.

“Yes!” she grabbed the new sheath of papers off the desk, flicking through them for a minute, then reading aloud, “He’d skipped town, which made some sense, considering his brother was wanted for murder – or rather, someone who looked exactly like his brother was wanted for murder, because she hadn’t remembered hearing anything about the name Winchester. Winchester! You don’t even – I mean, it’s a bad enough thing to give Sam and Dean a last name in fanfic as it is, because that’s such a huge point of contention among the fanbase, but seriously, to name them Winchester? After a gun? I mean, why not name them Smith and Wesson? Or Colt, or something!”

“It’s just… the name that came to me,” the other offered.

“Were you reading gun magazines at the time? I mean… Winchester? Seriously!”

“…s’just a name…” Jude whispered, quietly, eyes down. “So it’s… really boring?”

“That’s not… nngh.” Sera ran her hands through her short hair, sighing softly. “Okay, look. It’s not boring, it’s just… it needs a punch, something needs to happen. You have great characterization for Jess. She’s interesting. Part of that is maybe because Jess didn’t really have a character in the books, beyond being Sam’s motivation for… absolutely everything. So you’ve got a good character here. And Meg is interesting.”

Jude perked up a little, relieved to hear that at least.

“So just make something happen.” Sera shrugged. “That’ll help immensely. Get Jess out of her ‘I was in hell’ funk and make her deal with it somehow. Even if she deals in a completely unhealthy way, at least she’s doing something.”

“…that’s true,” she murmured, considering that. “What if the characters don’t cooperate?”

“Are you the writer or not?” she scoffed.

“…good point.”


	3. sparrowshellcat | And Sing of Sweet Surrender - Part Three

  


  


__When I close my eyes  
I am at the centre of the sun  
And I cannot be hurt  
By anything this wicked world has done

This was officially the worst idea that Jess had ever had.

She felt like something out of a really bad horror movie, the young blonde woman walking into the woods with no help, just a flashlight and steak knife tucked into the belt on the back of her jeans, more buzzed than drunk, but with a slight buzzing in her ears that was not created by fear but most definitely by the whiskey she’d downed before coming out here. 

It was insanity. It was the stupidest idea she had ever had. 

But here was she, slipping between the trees, flashlight flicking through the darkness ahead of her, picking out a vague path as she walked. 

Mostly, this was to prove a theory.

That’s what she was telling herself, anyway.

Sam had been somewhat paranoid, when they lived together. She remembered the salt, the strange symbols written in those books he kept hidden in a backpack under the bed, thinking that she had never seen them. She’d researched them as carefully as she could, and while she didn’t really understand what they meant, or what exactly Sam had thought he was doing with them, there were some things that she had figured out – mainly that her boyfriend genuinely believed that ghosts were real, despite his scoffing at her watching shows like Paranormal State. 

Taking a deep breath, she ducked under a tree branch, and looked intently through the darkness with her flashlight, trying to see what the locals of the town had been reporting – some kind of dark animal attacking people who were out exploring the woods. Usually couples, but either way, there was something out here.

Animal control, when she’d asked them this afternoon, told her that they had no idea what it might be. They were looking into wild dogs.

But when she’d asked the twenty-something couple who had most recently claimed to see the thing this morning, they had claimed it was much larger than just some dog. She tried to look into whether or not there had ever been wolves or bears here, but there was no evidence of that, either. 

So the next best thing was to see if she could find it herself.

The deeper Jess walked into the forest, the more she began to think that she was a moron. Tugging the knife out of the back of her belt, she gripped its black plastic handle tightly, swallowing nervously. The woods were quiet – too quiet, really. She’d never claimed to be an expert on the forest and wildlife – she was an English major for god’s sake – but she did know enough to know that the woods were never silent. There should have been frogs, crickets, the movement of birds.

There was nothing. The only sound she could hear was her own footsteps, her own breathing.

Slipping deeper in the forest, Jess turned to look the way she’d come, shining the flashlight behind her. There were a few small spots where she could see broken branches from where she had come through a few minutes before, but that was the only trace of her little path. 

She had no idea how she was going to get out of this forest.

A twig cracked, ahead of her, and she swung the flashlight to peer through the bushes and branches, trying to see what had made the noise. But the forest had fallen silent again, and it was as though it had been a distant imagining in her brain, something that she’d concocted to fill the silence again. Still passing the flashlight carefully over the darkness, she frowned, looking. Darkness, darkness, darkness, a gleam of gold, darkness…

Jess’ flashlight swung back to that flash of gold, sure that it was a figment of her imagination again, but no, it was still there, a round globe of gold.

That was covered for a moment as she shone the flashlight at it, the eyelid closing over the gold eye.

Startled, she let out a shout, hoping for the love of god that it was some kind of deer or something, that would just be startled by her shout, and run away. That would defeat the whole purpose of finding out whatever the hell that thing attacking people was, but now that she’d been out here walking about in the forest, she had become more than aware that she was very much alone out here, and if the thing attacked her, she was screwed.

The golden eyed thing did not bolt, but the eye narrowed, instead, and it started sliding closer to her through the bushes.

Tightening her grip on the flashlight with one hand – thank god she’d gotten one of those solid flashlights that cops used to bash people’s brains in – she held the steak knife tightly in her other hand, readying herself to stab whatever the hell it was.

It slid slowly out of the bushes, slinking, and Jess took an involuntary step back.

The first thing she noticed was the stench. It smelled oily and rotten, like it had been eating garbage and decaying animals for months. It was slinky and low to the ground, but hairless, like someone had dipped a panther in Nair, then glued porcupine quills all over its back. It bared its teeth as it neared her, razor sharp fangs with two vicious incisors at the front of its mouth, curled over its lip like a strange Sabretooth tiger.

And it looked angry as it bared its teeth, getting closer to her.

“Back off,” Jess bared her own teeth back at it, shining the flashlight directly in its eyes in an attempt to get it to do exactly that.

Though the creature flicked its head side to side like it was trying to shake the light out of them, it didn’t stop its advance, getting steadily closer to her. It made a low growling sound that made every hair on Jess’ body stand on end. She’d never seen anything like it before. Ever. It was like four or five already unusual creatures had been tossed in a blender and turned into one unholy abomination. 

“Get away from me,” she snarled, jabbing forward with the blade, trying to stab it. 

The thing jumped back, out of the range of her small blade, then swung at her with its claws, which were a hell of a lot larger than she’d originally thought they were. Though Jess stumbled back from it as well, she wasn’t nearly as agile or quick as the thing was, and it managed to catch her calf, pain blossoming in her leg as it ripped her skin open.

A few months ago, she might have screamed in pain at that. She might have turned tail and fled. 

But now, she just changed her stance, and shoved the pain back in her mind, into some store of strength she hadn’t even realized she possessed, and slammed the flash light down on the thing’s spiky head. There was a sickening crunch sound, like the smashing of a watermelon, and the thing let out an inhuman shriek of pain, staggering back from her. Its head was now sort of misshapen and lumpy – more than it had been before, that is – and blood was pouring from the wounds.

Baring her teeth, Jess swung, again and again and again, not even realizing that she was letting out an inhuman howl of her own as she crushed its head. Bits of brain matter were flying, but it was working.

Finally, she stumbled back, panting.

The thing had no head left. 

She had well and truly demolished its head. Crushed its skull and jaw and neck and everything until it was nothing more than a bloody, oily smear on the forest floor, and her flashlight, which now flickered when she tried to point it anywhere to see, was a bloody, brain covered mess. 

Her breathing was unsteady now, hitching slightly whenever she tried to draw in another lungful, her legs wobbly. And now that the thing was dead, the pain in her leg was making itself more than known.

Taking a deep breath, Jess closed her eyes for a few moments, then forced herself to look at the thing, to catalogue its every sick detail so she could look it up when she got home. 

And then turned, and puked in a raspberry bush, bracing herself on a tree.

A few minutes later, wiping her mouth clean, Jess stumbled back to the body, and fumbled with the cheap BiC lighter that she’d brought with her, struggling to get it lit. Finally getting a flame, she held the flickering little flame in her shaking left hand, and carefully lit a stick on fire. Flame spread slowly only the piece of wood, finally turning it into a small torch. Hand still trembling, she held it down towards the thing, gasping as it flared into flames. It had smelled like oil, and apparently it was oily enough to create a torch itself. 

Stumbling back from the flames, she watched until they started to fade, hand over her mouth and nose to try and keep the smell out of her lungs. When the flames finally faded, she kicked soil onto the little oily fire until it faded to embers, and finally, slowly, burnt out.

Still shaking, Jess shoved her bloodless knife in her belt again, and stumbled out of the woods, hoping desperately that she was following her path correctly, hoping desperately that she was getting out of here.

\----

 

_ I left the only home I know  
I stayed alive and I found you _

Apparently Jess’ methods of the killing of chupacabras was unorthodox. To say the least.

She’d skipped town the morning after the monster killing, wanting to get as far away from the memory of that pain and that horror as she could, as quickly as she could. So after a shower and a quick laundry run, she’d headed east, just trying to get the fuck out of California. It had taken two rounds of Bleach for Unbleachables to get the blood out of her jeans. She now appreciated why, exactly, Sam wore so much plaid. The blood was all but invisible on the red plaid shirt she’d been wearing.

Sitting on another Greyhound, with a wireless rocket stick plugged into the side of her laptop, Jess sat researching, legs crossed so that her feet were tucked under her and her knees were smushed into the backof the seat in front of her.

It had, in fact, been a chupacabra.

Most of the sketches were ridiculously wrong, but at least they did get one point across – they were ugly motherfuckers, and she was lucky that the gauze pads wrapped with tensor bandages on her calf were the only injuries she had. She needed to get more tensors, though – between her wrist, which she refused to leave uncovered now, and her leg, she was slowly turning into some kind of bandaged woman.

Sighing softly, she flicked through a couple other pages, checking where Sam was, quickly – somewhere in the Midwest, based on his bank withdrawal locations – and then flicking to a few major news sites.

Sam used to do this, back in Palo Alto. He’d be sitting on the end of the couch whenever he was finished his homework, idly flicking through the news sites, and when she’d glance over, she’d see that it was always strange storm patterns, or bizarre animal attacks, or strange deaths. Looking back on it now, with 20/20 hindsight, she was pretty sure what he’d been looking for before. He was looking for freaky ass monsters like that chupacabra.

Running her hand through her hair, Jess glanced out the window, setting her elbow on the window frame so that she could rest her chin on her palm, worrying at her lower lip. She didn’t really know what she was doing anymore.

She was keeping an eye on where Sam was, at all times if possible. But she was no longer trying to get near him – her bus had passed the last town he was in two hours ago. In all honesty, this bus was bound for Indiana, which held absolutely no connection for her except that the last time she’d talked to Meg, the other woman had said she was going there. It was the most ridiculous reason in the entire world to go there, but it was the only thing she had right now. She just didn’t think it was fair, when Sam was freaking out about his brother and these potential charges, to add the strain of ‘by the way, your dead girlfriend isn’t dead’ to his load.

So she was doing something as different from facing Sam as she could.

Apparently, that something was trying to find the little blond she’d slept naked beside and had a pillow fight with, and trying to find unnatural monsters so that she could beat their heads in with her flashlight.

“I am the most fucked up woman on the planet,” she groaned, scrubbing her face with her hands.

An hour later, she climbed off the bus in Indiana, with her duffel tossed over her shoulder and all of the information she needed to know on a possible haunting in Highland, Indiana in a notebook. Her sneakers, still blood speckled despite her best attempts to scrub them clean, tapped quietly on the concrete as she stepped away from the bus. She didn’t need anymore luggage from under the bus – her duffel was all she had.

Frowning, she headed to the bulletin board that listed the local hotels and their rates, hoping to find something affordable to stay in. While she did have the money she’d pulled out of her bank account – all of her scholarship money for this entire semester – it wasn’t going to last forever. Or even much longer.

“….Jess?”

She jumped, startled, and looked to the left.

Meg, of all people, was sprawled on the floor between a row of lockers, head cocked to the side as she considered her. She had her large backpack under her head, her ipod headphones in again, and was flipping through a magazine that kind of looked like she’d found it on one of the chairs here. “….what are you doing here?”

“I – looking for a hotel,” she said, lamely, pointing at the bulletin board.

The other barked in laughter, and scrambled up, coming over to her, laughing. “I was heading back to California, to see if you were still in the area, but… this makes it a hell of a lot easier to actually see you. Saves me money on a bus ticket, too.”

Jess laughed, flushed. “You were coming to see me?”

“Well… I figured I’d check out the last town I made a friend in, and see if she wanted to hang out for a while… but here you are, in the town I’m trying to get out of.” Meg leaned on the bulletin board, laughing as she crossed her arms. “Some kind of serendipity, huh, that we managed to cross paths instead of ending up lost like two ships in the night, isn’t it?”

“Yeah, guess so,” she smirked. “Some kind of destiny.”

“You much of a believer in destiny?” the other drawled, looking her up and down, as though there was some kind of symbol that a person might wear that would denote their belief in that ideal.

“Not really. Just like I don’t really believe that a single person should be forced by some damn destiny to change the world.” Jess laughed. “So… you still heading out?”

“Ah, no, no point in spending money on a bus ticket when you’re already here, come on, girly, use your head,” Meg reached up to teasingly rap on Jess’ forehead. “Come on. I know a motel that’s a pretty good balance of cost and roach level. You sprang for the room last time, it’s my time to pay for this one. Coming?”

“Yeah,” Jess nodded, surprised by how relieved this made her. “Coming.”

\----

_ But as sure as God made black and white  
What’s done in the dark will be brought to the light _

“Do you believe in hell?”

Meg looked up from her nails, which apparently she had trouble filing properly, and blinked at Jess. “Hell?”

“Yeah,” she murmured, quietly, staring at the mirrored ceiling above them. “Hell.”

“Why do you ask?” Meg twisted the cap back on the nail polish she was going to paint her nails with, setting it aside so that she could roll onto her side, looking at Meg thoughtfully. 

“Does that matter?”

“No,” she admitted, considering that. “It doesn’t really matter. That much. But, ah… it’s an unusual question. Yeah. I believe in hell. In different forms, though. I mean, do you consider hell to be other people, or to be a physical place? Because hell as a physical place is slightly more difficult to imagine – I mean, where the hell do you put it?”

Jess snorted. “Where the hell do you put hell?”

Meg laughed, grinning up at her. “Yeah. I mean… where is it? In China somewhere? Under the surface of the earth, like Dante suggested? Somewhere in space? On a different plane of existence? How do you get there? And can you get back?”

Still staring up at their reflections in the mirrored ceiling, as though unable to look away, she murmured, “I think it’s underground somewhere, like in a huge cavern or something, with fire. And… crowds. A lot of people, all held in different areas, all in pain.”

“Oh yeah?” she considered that.

“But I also don’t think it’s a place, exactly,” Jess murmured, frowning slightly. “It’s not exactly a place. It’s more a sensation. It’s pain and suffering and… ripping people apart. I think if you ever got out of there, you’d be a tough son of a bitch.”

“Yeah, maybe,” Meg sat up, stretching. “But I think you’d be pretty damn fucked up.”

“Yeah,” Jess nodded, taking a slow, long swig of the tiny vodka bottle she’d been turning over and over in her fingers, draining it. “You probably would.”

“Is this what you do when you get drunk?” the other snorted, leaning over to brush Jess’ hair off of her forehead. “Get depressing and slightly morbid, and ponder the existence of metaphysical ideas that philosophers have battled over for centuries?”

“Not usually,” she smirked faintly. “Usually I get sloppy drunk and make out with the nearest person.”

“…in that case…” Meg laughed, and leaned over to dig in the little miniature fridge, tugging out several little bottles of alcohol, offering her several. “Tequila, whiskey, rum… ooh, vodka. Which do you want first?”

Snickering, Jess took another bottle of vodka from the other’s hand, cracking the little cap off. “I try to stick to the same kind of alcohol all night. Allows me to avoid hangovers.”

“Sure,” she drawled, cracking open a whiskey bottle for herself, sipping. 

“You know, if you wanted me to make out with you, you could have just asked,” she drawled, knocking back a swallow of the cold clear spirits. “I haven’t been in much of a making out mood lately, but I could probably be convinced, in an effort to be nice.”

“I don’t want you making out with me because you’re trying to be nice,” she squirmed down to lie properly beside Jess, looking up at their reflections in the ceiling. They were oddly similar and yet terribly different, both blond, but one with long hair, one with short, one long and muscular and curvy, the other short and wiry. “If you’re going to be making out with me, I’d like it to be because you want to make out with me. And yeah, because you’re sloppy drunk is probably not the best reason in the world to have for someone making out with them, but… at least it’s better than pity.”

“It wouldn’t be pity!” Jess squalled.

“Sounds kinda like pity,” Meg pointed out, taking another swig of her tiny bottle.

Jess took a deep breath, and closed her eyes, trying not to look up at themselves. It was almost creepy now, now that they were both lying side by side staring straight up at themselves. It was like a disturbing painting. “S’not pity. You’ve taken care of me.”

“So now it’s gratitude?” she blinked.

“No, I – this is so damn hard to explain.” She groaned, scrubbing at her face with her hands again. She’d managed to drain yet another vodka bottle, and she could feel it buzzing almost warm at the base of her skull. She didn’t really plan on standing up at this point, because she was pretty sure that if she tried to, she was going to careen into something.

“Try,” Meg said, squirming closer.

Opening her eyes again, she met her own gaze in the mirror. “Some shit has gone down, the last… few weeks. And you’re the first person I’ve met since everything started that – well, that I actually remember. Everyone else has kind of seemed like shadows and wisps of smoke in the darkness. Like I’m walking through a world where the other people I bump into aren’t actually real, they’re just ghosts. But now I know who you are, I know you, and you’ve made a connection, and… I guess you’ve started to break through the weird shell that’s been around me. So you mean something… important to me.”

The other smiled, reaching up to push a tendril of Jess’ curls back again. “Yeah? Is that so?”

“Mmhmm,” she nodded.

“So alcohol is not really needed then, huh? I could just sidle over and kiss you and you’d probably be okay with it?” Meg smirked, watching her.

Jess hesitated. “Probably.”

She snorted. “Well, with that encouraging attitude about it, I don’t think I’d want to try, for fear you change your mind and break one of those little vodka bottles on my face.”

“I wouldn’t – “ she sighed, and shifted closer to Meg, propping herself up on her elbow, moving in to kiss the other woman.

“No.” Meg pressed her fingertips against Jess’ lips, stopping her.

“…what?” she blinked, surprised. “But I thought you wanted me to – “

“I do.” The other lowered her hands. 

“But then – “

“When you’re not drunk,” she said, smiling softly at her, crooked. “I don’t want you to be able to say that I took advantage of you because you were drunk.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” Jess frowned.

“Sure. But honestly… if you still want to do this tomorrow, when you’re sober, then you can wait til tomorrow for when you’re sober.” The other ruffled her hair, then rolled away from her, grabbing the remote. The television flared to life, blue and eerie and flickering in the silence, and Meg glanced back at Jess, smirking. “So drink your blues away tonight if you have to. Then we’ll talk in the morning.”

The taller woman blinked, surprised, considering her next vodka bottle. It was one of the strangest conversations she’d ever had. “…Meg?”

“Mmhmm?” she glanced back at her. 

“…do you think only bad people go to hell?”

Meg sighed softly, and rolled to face her properly, watching as Jess peeled the label off of the bottle. “No. I think bad people go to hell. And people that God got pissed at for some reason.”

“Yeah?” she considered her. 

“Yeah. There are probably other ways, too, like people who sell their souls, or people who make deals with the devil, or people who get cursed by demons or something. Maybe possessed people, not sure.” She considered that, then shrugged. “I don’t know. Does it matter?”

“….no.” she murmured.

“Are you sure? You keep bringing it up.” The shorter woman braced herself on her elbow, watching Jess thoughtfully. “Is there something bothering you?”

“No,” she said again, quickly this time. “Sorry I’m being all moody. Just… a recent death has gotten me thinking.”

“Ah,” the other nodded. “I get it.”

“Yeah. Um… do you know if the bus goes up into Highlands?”

“The Greyhound?”

She nodded, shifting to sit up a little better in the bed, cracking the cap off her new bottle of vodka, taking a swig of the liquid, swallowing against the cold burn. “I need to go into Highlands for a day. Well, a night, probably.”

“We could go tomorrow,” Meg shrugged, stretching. 

“I – “ Jess hesitated. Meg seemed like a nice, perfectly normal girl. She really wasn’t sure how a nice, perfectly normal girl would react to being informed that she was going to Highlands to hunt a ghost because she was trying to test the theory of salting and burning a corpse as a ghost hunting method. “You’ll stay in the hotel when I go out to run my errands, right?”

The other narrowed her eyes slightly, considering that statement, then nodded. “Okay.”

She sighed softly, relieved, then nodded. “Okay.”

“Right. Well, the bus does go to Highlands. We’ll head out tomorrow morning, get a nice place, then you can take as long as you want to in order to do your ‘errands’.” She smirked. “Whatever they are.”

“Oi.” Jess flushed. “They’re errands…”

“Sure.” She drawled, taking a swig of her whiskey.

\----

[Part Four](http://sparrowshellcat.dreamwidth.org/40113.html) 

 

  



	4. sparrowshellcat | And Sing of Sweet Surrender - Part Four

  


  


_ Would I spend forever here  
And not be satisfied _

Jess climbed the stairs into the little house, gripping her flashlight tightly. There was a crack in the lens, and she’d had to replace the batteries more rapidly now than she’d ever had to before she beat in the chupacabra’s head, but at least it still worked. And it was still a handy weapon.

The door was swinging open when she stepped in, and looked around, flashlight sweeping swaths through the darkness.

Cobwebs obscured most of the old furniture, and that which wasn’t covered in the dust of age had been marred by teenaged vandals and the homeless looking for a safe place to hide for the night. The way she heard the stories, both from the recent newspaper articles and the old stories that were archived online, no one that came into 32 Shadowbrook Lane stayed very long. 

That included all of those people that had ever lived her before. The house was empty, a vacant shell that had never housed one family for longer than six months since the early 1900s, when the original family who had built the house had stayed for twenty odd years.

Floorboards creaking under her feet, Jess padded slowly through the house, flashlight beam bouncing over cracked antique plates on the wall, over dusty footprints on the floor. 

Padding into the kitchen, she hissed slightly at the scene, even though she had seen pictures.

The decaying remains of plastic police tape were still clinging to the windows and the doorframe, but they had been left for a long time. The floor was stained in a wide pool, dark reddish brown, and on the wall, in the same colour, was written the words “Get out of my house”.

Six months ago, a kid was found dead here, those words written in his blood. 

Gruesome, but… 

According to most of the ghost stories she’d found online about this place, the house was supposed to be haunted by the old patriarch of the Brook family. The lane outside had been partially named after them, and their house had once been a point of pride for Highlands. Now, it hung empty, its dark windows like gaunt eyes looking out at the street and the more lively houses around it. Its grandeur lost by the years, it was as though the house had decided to replace its former glory days with new days of terror.

Padding quietly past the bloodstains and the words, Jess headed into the backyard, which was overgrown and almost jungle like. Hitting shrubs aside with her flashlight, she almost tripped over the gravestones before she spotted them.

Four, in a row, neat headstones. Once upon a time they had been marble and clean and white, but now they were old, cracked, weather beaten and worn, so washed by the elements that the names were almost impossible to make out. Crouching in front of them, she shone the flashlight on each until she managed to make out: “Peter 1913, Lily 1913, Son Peter 1913, Daughter Rose 1913.”

“What happened to y’all?” she murmured, brushing her fingers against the smooth letters. “That made some of you so angry as to kill people?”

She shook her head, and stood back up, considering the graves, then headed back up the path she’d made to the back of the house, then scooped up the long handed metal spade she’d spotted back there a few minutes before. Heading over to the graves, she started to dig, her flashlight laying on the ground beside the graves as she dug to light up the work space. 

This job would be a lot easier if she wasn’t alone, she realized as she dug, wiping her brow on her plaid shirt every once in awhile. Someone to hold the light, someone to dig. 

Maybe to take turns, she amended as she rolled her shoulders. 

It took her at least an hour and a half to dig, but fortunately the coffins hadn’t been buried as deep as they would be if they’d been buried these days, and despite the age of the graves themselves, the dirt wasn’t as hard packed as she would have expected. It was just heavy enough that layers and layers of dirt made her arms sore and her back ache.

Still, soon there were four rickety looking coffins laying at her feet, worn and old. 

Jess took a deep breath, looking down in the low hole – three feet at its deepest – at the coffins. They were bringing back unpleasant memories, making her think of things that she didn’t want to think of. The tightness of the coffin. The confines of the grave. The dirt tumbling in about her when she tried to break free. The packaged staleness of the air. At least the people inside these pine boxes were dead – had been dead for a very very long time, and she hoped to god that they had been that way when they were shoved in there in the first place. 

Taking a deep breath, she smashed the tops of the four coffins, one after another, then used the metal spade of the shovel to push the bits of wood aside. It had been weak, fragile old wood, so it had broken easily. She’d been expecting more resistance, so some of her thrusts had been a little too hard for the aged wood, and she’d actually managed to crack apart some of the old, yellowed bones, too.

They lay there in their boxes, their arms crossed over their chests, though it was all bones and old, faded jewallery, tarnished with time and age. Two small skeletons, one medium sized, one large. 

Father, mother, son, daughter. 

Four members of the Brook family, all dead, all gone.

Climbing down into the grave, she considered the remains, crouching between the father and son to peer at them both. Jess was pretty sure that this was not ‘standard procedure’, especially based on some of the things she’d read online, but she wanted to know what had happened to these four. The reports she had found were sketchy at best. Even her visit to the town Historical Society this afternoon hadn’t been that useful. 

In 1913, the Brooks were found dead in their house, and no one really knew why. They were just dead. 

“I guess I’m not going to get any answers from you, Bonesy, am I?” she peered down into the empty eye sockets of the senior Brooks, and straightened, clambering out of the hole. “Alas, poor Yorrick. I knew him, Horatio.”

Crouching to dig in the backpack she’d brought with her, Jess tugged out the little box of table salt, and hesitated. “…should I have gotten kosher?”

Figuring it probably didn’t matter that much – more that it was salt, not what kind – she poured the entire contents over the four bodies, nose crinkling slightly as she did. It was dustier than she’d expected, but it seemed to do the job – every one of the corpses was “salted”, after all. 

A liberal spray of lighter fluid followed, then Jess hesitated.

“Um… I’m not really sure I’m doing this right,” she admitted aloud, clearing her throat. “I suppose it’s a bit of ashes to ashes, dust to dust, but… I mean, you probably had a real funeral back when you were buried, and the proper words were probably all said, so… there’s probably nothing that I can add to really make a difference. So… um… yeah. Let the earth you were made from accept you back, and ah… stop killing people, okay?”

She lit a match them from the little book, and shoved it into the cover with the others. Immediately, it flared up, and she tossed it quickly into the shallow grave, watching as the lighter fluid flared up, taking fire instantly.

It smelled terrible. Not as bad as the chupacabra had, and it didn’t burn quite as easily, but it still burned pretty well, and with a musty, old smell to the flames.

Jess held her hand to her nose for a few moments, watching the flames, then abruptly the world was upside down.

For a moment, she had no idea what exactly had just happened. She honestly thought maybe she was seeing wrong, but then she realized that she was lying on her back in the jungle like grass, and all of the breath was knocked out of her. Gasping for air, she struggled to sit up, looking around wildly, trying to figure out what exactly had just happened.

Something cracked against her shoulder, and she howled in pain, reeling away from her spade, which seemed to have taken on a life of its own.

Shoving the pain back in her mind, trying not the think about it, Jess scrambled back towards the fire, fumbling for the box of salt. The spade cracked down across her back again, and she gritted her teeth tightly as she grasped the cardboard box finally – oh god, why was it so close to empty? – and swept it in the direction of the flying spade. Salt flew out of the spout of the box in an arching stream, and seemed to strike against something invisible, which seemed to actually burn slightly in the air. The spade dropped, instantly, to the ground, and something screamed.

“Ah! I know you’re there!” she swung the salt again, and the burning in the air started again.

“I just want my hooooooooouuuuuuse!” the thing screamed, and wailed when she hit it with another stream of salt.

Another arc missed, or maybe the thing had disappeared, because there was nothing there when she swung the box again. Shaking the box, looking wildly about, Jess wished to everything that might be listening she had more, because it was starting to sound very empty.

The light suddenly arced and wobbled crazily as the flashlight flew into the air. Jess kicked at the area around it, hoping to connect, but nothing was there. She ducked, but not soon enough as the flashlight cracked against her forehead, catching her eyebrow. It only grazed her, really, and she was lucky, but she was still dazed and dizzy as she ended up pitching the entity of the box of salt at the space where the thing had been.

There was another cry of pain, and she swore, for a moment, that she saw the outline of a man. “My curse remains!” he howled. “Get out of me house!”

“You’re dead, you son of a bitch!” Jess howled back, scrambling to scoop up the nearest object – the spade, where it had fallen, and swung it at the shadow. 

For the first time, the metal end connected with what little she could see, and the form seemed to disintegrate into embers and ash, drifting away. Gasping, panting, she braced herself, bent slightly, knuckles white on the handle of the shovel. “…was that it? Did that kill it?”

The flashlight cracked into the top of her shoulder blade this time, and Jess howled, spinning to swing the shovel again.

Once again, the shadow disintegrated, and she stumbled to grab her flashlight from where it had fallen, then her bag, and ran. The fire still crackled behind her, though it had died down considerably since she had first started it, but she could still hear the angry howls behind her, the cries of “My house, my house!” as she hit the streets running, sneakers pounding on the pavement as she ran.

Heart pounding, lungs burning, she didn’t stop until she was fumbling for the keys to the motel room door, struggling to get one that worked before the door suddenly swung open for her.

“Jess!” Meg gasped, gaping up at the taller woman. “What the hell happened to you!?!”

Darting past the other women into the room, Jess slumped to sit on the edge of the bed, bending double, head hanging between her knees, long ponytail hanging in her face, creating a barrier that she was able to hide behind for a moment as she struggled to breathe.

“What the hell?!” the other crouched in front of her, cupping Jess’ jaw and lifting it to look at her, anxiously. “Jess, you’re bleeding!”

She nodded, panting. She could feel the blood trickling from just above her eyebrow, now that Meg mentioned it, wet and slightly sticky as it trailed down her temple, her jaw. 

“Okay, seriously, breathe. I’m going to get the first aid kit.” She stood, and darted to the bathroom. 

As she did, Jess slowly tugged her backpack off her shoulders, letting it drop to the floor. It had still been open when she started her frantic run down the street, so she was pretty sure some of the books of matches she’d bought that day had fallen out, along with the bottle of lighter fluid. She was going to have to think of a better way to transport those than a little beat up backpack from a thrift store. At least she still had the flashlight, and she flicked it off, setting it on the bed too. Sighing softly, she leaned back, then winced. Her back was killing her. 

“Okay, we got it…” Meg darted back into the room, sitting on the bed, flicking the kit open. “Look at me. Let me see. Let me see.”

Jess looked at the blond, watching her as the other gently cleaned her face with a warm, wet washcloth. Her attention was on the other’s eyes, though, looking for compassion but actually seeing an almost clinical efficiency. She wasn’t sure what it meant, though it worried her slightly.

“Is it okay?”

“Bruised up as fuck,” Meg frowned, wiping still. “And bloody. What did you get hit with?”

“Flashlight,” she grunted, closing her eyes.

“How come?” 

“The flashlight hit me in the face, so it bruised.”

“How’d you manage that?” Meg snorted.

“I’m a klutz?” she suggested.

“Yeah right. I’ve watched you walk around, watched you do things. You’re not a klutz, you’re actually pretty graceful. You ever dance?”

“Ballet, when I was like six,” Jess snorted.

“Well, you must have learned something. Because you are not a klutz. What happened to you?”

She shrugged, flushed.

“You smelt like a crematorium. Seriously. You smell like dead burning people, and you have been beat up. I mean, you should see this, it’s turning into a black eye!”

Jess flushed. “…really?”

“Yeah.” She frowned, and dug in the first aid kit, tugging out a little wrapped package, ripping it open to pull out an alcohol swab, dabbing gently at her face, trying to disinfect it. A moment later, she affixed little butterfly bandages to her cut, fixing it in place. “There, that should take care of that… do you have any other injuries?”

She hesitated. 

“Okay, you don’t even have to answer, obviously you are if that’s your answer,” she rolled her eyes. “Okay, where did you get hit? I need to know.”

“Shoulder. Back, really. That’s all.”

She sighed, and nodded. “Okay, let me see.”

“…do you have to?” Jess asked, flushed. “I mean, I don’t think it’s bleeding or anything…” 

“Let me see,” Meg said firmly, in a voice that brooked no arguments.

Sighing, Jess tugged off her plaid over shirt, wincing slightly. Her shoulder and back were seriously aching now, stiff as anything, the muscles protesting. It hurt a lot, actually, a lot more than she’d expected. Still, she got the plaid off, and was glad she was just wearing a tank top underneath so that she didn’t have to strip completely.

“Let’s see,” Meg murmured, fingers working across her back, light. “You’re seriously bruised.”

“I figured,” she murmured.

“What the hell happened to you?” she demanded, coldly.

“I got klutzy.”

“What happened?” she asked again, jabbing her fingers into one of the bruises, and Jess gasped in pain, startled by the other’s pushing and prodding. “Jess.”

Wincing slightly, she twisted her head enough to look back at the other, and murmured, “Just got hit. Stop poking.”

Meg stood, beginning to pace the room, as though sure that if she didn’t, she was going to do something that she was going to regret. Frowning, her fists clenched, she grumbled. “You are lying to me, Jess.”

Watching her, Jess frowned slightly, confused by the others anger. “…so? What allegiance am I supposed to have to you?”

The other woman hesitated. 

“See?” she muttered, quietly, and stood. “I’m going to take a shower. Will these bandages stick on under the water?”

Meg’s eyes flicked to her, watching Jess. “Yes.”

She nodded, and slipped into the bathroom. The shower helped, hot water pouring down over her, easing her stiff muscles, helping her wounds actually, helping with the pain. Leaning against the shower tiles, she sighed softly, eyes closed. “Nnngh. Shit.”

When Jess returned to the bedroom a few minutes later, the other woman was sitting cross legged in the middle of the bed, a small pile of those miniature alcohol bottles sitting beside her. She watched Jess with calm, level eyes and a gaze that was sort of unnerving, and patted the bed, motioning for the other to join her. 

“What’s this? Some kind of reverse intervention?” she smirked slightly, sitting awkwardly on the bed. 

“Sort of. Here.” The other handed over a bottle of vodka.

“No thanks.”

“Whiskey?”

“….no, just not really thirsty right now.”

She frowned, watching her. “Are you sure? You might need a drink.”

“I don’t need a drink,” Jess said firmly.

“Fine.” Meg crossed her arms, watching her. “What attacked you.”

It wasn’t really a question.

She sighed softly, closing her eyes, and murmured, “Nothing really… that I – I don’t know how to explain it, really.”

“Just try.”

“…I was investigating a house where a teenager died a few months ago, on Brookshadow. There are some reports of – of strange deaths, and strange things in that house and everything. Some people claim to see things that can’t really be there, and stuff like that. So… I was investigating. I wanted to know what was going on there.”

“You were doing a ghost hunt.” Meg looked slightly incredulous.

“…sort of, yeah,” she admitted, flushed.

“And the ghost beat the crap out of you?” the other crossed her arms, watching Jess.

“I guess it kind of did,” she muttered. “Though it wasn’t the one I was thinking it was going to be, because really, I thought I’d taken care of the people that should have been there…”

“I didn’t know you were a ghost hunter,” Meg smirked, crookedly.

“I’m not really sure that I’m a ‘ghost hunter’,” she snickered, shaking her head. “I’m not really a ghost hunter. Or an anything hunter, really. I just kind of try to get rid of some things that cause people troubles, that hurt people. I don’t really like the thought of anyone being subjected to pain because of something they… something they don’t understand or even know is there. Like a ghost, or like… other things.”

“Other things?” Meg frowned.

“Well, like a… chupacabra.”

“…what the heck is a chupacabra?” she blinked at her, confused.

“It’s a Mexican creature… it means goat sucker. According to the story, it would bite into the neck of a goat, and suck up all the blood… it attacks sheep, too, and other things like that. I mean, it’s…”

“You’ve seen one of these things?” she asked, frowning.

Jess tugged her pant leg up, and began slowly unwrapping the tensor bandages around her calf, then peeled off the gauze underneath. The wounds were starting to close up, but they still looked nasty, four long, wide grooves. “I’ve more than seen it. The sucker took a hunk out of my leg.”

Meg hissed, running her fingertips along the edges of the wounds. 

“It looks worse than it is, right now,” she murmured, watching the other woman. The other seemed to put considerable interest into her wounds, it was a little odd. “It’s been healing pretty well.”

“Is that what happened to your arm, too?” the other’s eyes flicked to Jess’ wrist.

Jess tugged her hand a little more against her stomach, sort of cradling it, hiding it a little from her view. “It’s nothing.”

“Nothing,” she repeated, frowning. 

“It wasn’t the chupacabra. It was something else. I think. It’s nothing important,” she murmured, flushed, picking at the edges of her bandages. 

“What was it?”

“I don’t know,” Jess admitted, quietly. It was true. She genuinely had no idea what it could have been. All of her research still pointed in no directions to burned in hand prints. That particular wound remained a mystery, as much as her sudden and still unexplained rise from the grave was. “I’ll take some of that whiskey now, if you don’t mind.”

Meg nodded, and handed over a bottle. “So you believe in this stuff, huh?”

“I never did before,” Jess muttered, cracking the little metal cap off and taking a deep long swig of the amber liquid, feeling it burning her throat slightly on the way down, warming her up from the inside out. “I kind of thought it was just superstition and stupid myths, but… everything I’ve seen lately, I can’t pretend it’s not real anymore.”

“Mm.” she watched her, considering that thought. “Interesting.”

“I know,” she flushed, taking another swig of the whiskey, swallowing. “It’s weird as all fuck. But that’s the way it is, I guess. This is what I’ve found, and that’s all there is to it.”

“So do you hunt them?” she asked quietly. “Ghosts and things, that is.”

“I guess so. I guess I do.” She smiled faintly, picking at the label of her bottle. “I guess I’m a hunter.”

\----

 

_ And it’s time we saw a miracle  
Come on its time for something Biblical _

“Okay, seriously, you dug this up?”

Jess squirmed slightly, looking down into the shallow grave. “Yeah. I dug that up.”

“….and then you lit the poor sons of bitches on fire.”

“Well, it was really the only way to put their spirits to rest. I mean, there are a lot of theories about that,” Jess glanced at Meg, who was gaping into the hole with a faint look of disgust. “If you can find the body, or remains of the body, then you salt them, which is an old purification method, and burn them, for the full on dust to dust, ashes to ashes thing. If there is no body, or if the person has been buried in a complete other place, like… states away from the place where their soul got trapped, well… then you stick an iron blade in the dirt. It’s supposed to force them out.”

“Huh.” Meg considered that, shuddering slightly. “So you burned them. Doesn’t that mean they should be leaving you and, you know, everyone else, alone?”

“Yeah,” she nodded. “Which is why I don’t think it was one of these four people, to be honest.”

“Do you know who it could be?” 

“I don’t,” she murmured, frowning. “I guess I have to do some research. But you wanted to see where it happened, so… yeah. This is where I got the crap beaten out of me by someone that wasn’t, you know, really here.”

She laughed softly, shaking her head. “C’mon, then. We need to do some research, then.”

There was a crash, and both women looked sharply at the house. “…let’s go right now,” Jess said, quickly, eyes wide. “Or we’re about to get slammed again.”

“That didn’t sound like a ghost. That sounded like a kid goofing off.”

She hesitated, then said, “If there’s a kid in there, there’s a good chance this thing is going to attack them. It attacks people that it sees as being wrongly in the house. It calls it his house. So maybe we should go check on them, you know? Make sure the kid isn’t going to get killed…”

“Sounds like a good plan,” the other nodded, and grabbed Jess’ hand, tugging her towards the house, following the little path she’d made before.

They headed upstairs, slowly, trying to make sure that the stairs didn’t give out from underneath them, though they creaked ominously. Together, one after each other, they padded up the stairs, quietly, listening nervously for the sound of whoever might be in the house. Meg looked remarkably calm about the whole thing, which surprised her a little. She didn’t seem phased in the slightest that they were invading an old house and looking for a kid who might be killed by a ghost if they didn’t, and honestly didn’t even look that phased by the idea that there was a dead guy walking about the house at all.

There was another sound at the end of the hall, and Jess hissed slightly. Hefting her flashlight, she headed down the hall, quietly, and called, “Hello?”

There was a scrambling sound, and two voices speaking rapidly.

Meg snorted, and headed to the door of the room with the other woman, grinning as she leaned in the door. “Put your pants on, kids.”

“What are you doing here?” one of them demanded, a tall, broad young man, flushed. 

“Keeping you two alive,” Jess frowned. “What the hell are you doing in this house? People keep getting killed in this house, guys.”

The other, almost obscenely tall and gangly, blinked at them. “…killed?”

“Yeah.” Meg grinned. “I mean, if you’re into murder scene sex, all the power to you, kinky is kinky, but if you’re just trying to get a thrill by having sex in an abandoned house, or a house where there are ghosts and stuff, you might want to go to a different house. Just in case, cause in this one, people like you end up dead.”

The taller of the two paled dramatically, and squeaked, “Dead?”

His shorter friend frowned, looking more phased by his friend’s concern than by the threat that Meg was drawling out at him. “C’mon, Clover. Let’s just get out of here, okay?”

He nodded, frantically, grabbing the other’s hand, and following the other out of the room, quickly.

Jess snorted, watching them run off, then sighed, shaking her head. “Damn.” 

Meg roared with laughter, leaning on the wall. “Ha! That was fucking hilarious! Did you see the look on that kid’s face?!”

Shaking her head, she laughed softly.

“C’mon, let’s get to that research of yours,” Meg slipped her hand into Jess’ hand again, tugging her along the hall. “I mean, unless you wanted to take a page out of the kid’s book…”

“Oh ha ha, very funny,” she snorted, shaking her head. “I’m not into murder scenes either.”

“They’re not so bad… there’s a note of forbidden and evil to murder scenes… a dark little edge that reminds you of what it means to be alive. Makes you seek the finer things in life.”

“Okay, that, that is creepy.” Jess shuddered.

Meg snorted, then spun when Jess’ hand was ripped from hers.

Jess had been walking quite calmly down the hall when her feet abruptly left the ground, and she was thrown down the entire length of the hall, her back slamming into the wall at the opposite end of the house, gasping. The wind knocked completely out of her, she tried to struggle to her feet, knees weak.

“Stay down!” Meg shouted, and there was a sizzling sound as the shorter woman swung a metal pole she’d snatched up from the dusty, leaf strewn floor. There was a shout of unearthly pain, and the same ghost man Jess had fought the day before flickered half into view.

Even though she’d been ordered down, Jess still tried to rise.

Then stopped dead, gaping in shock when the other woman ran the metal pole straight through the ghost, then up, ripping the ghost in half, burning him up.

“Meg, are you – “

“C’mon!” she howled, holding out an arm towards Jess.

Scrambling fully to her feet, she raced down the hallway, catching the other woman’s hand and letting her haul her down the stairs, stumbling as they ran at a breakneck speed down the stairs, then out of the house, and onto the street. Just like last time that Jess had run from this house, they pounded on the pavement, but this time, Meg was the one pulling Jess with her, almost faster than the other could keep up with, even with her longer legs.  
  
[Part Five](http://sparrowshellcat.dreamwidth.org/40226.html)

 

  



	5. sparrowshellcat | And Sing of Sweet Surrender - Part Five

  


  


__Our hearts are small and ever thinning  
There is no hope ever of winning  
So why fear death?  
Be scared of living

Curled against the window of yet another Greyhound bus, Jess had her head resting on the glass, pillowed by a balled up sweatshirt. They had pulled up the armrest between them, and Meg actually was curled into her, head resting on the other’s chest as she sat, eyes half closed. Running her fingers through the other’s short blond hair, Jess murmured, “I feel sorry for him.”

“For who?” Meg murmured, one of her loosely curled hands resting on lowest rib of the other’s ribcage. 

“For the brother,” she glanced down at the other woman, brushing her bangs off her forehead. “The Brooks, Robert, remember?”

“Mmm, yeah.”

They’d fled back to the historical society after leaving the house that night, and an investigation of the family with a greater understanding of what to look for let them find the real story. In 1912, a year before the deaths, the two brothers had both been living in the house with their families and their aged mother. When she died towards the end of the year, everyone in the family had been shocked that she had left the house to just one son, instead of both. And then, in an even bigger shocker, Andrew had unceremoniously kicked his brother and his family out of the house. The official reports got a little fuzzy then, but exactly a year to the day that Robert had been expelled from the home he’d spent his whole life in, Edward, his wife, and his two children were found dead in their sitting room.

It didn’t take a genius to realize that Robert had something to do with it, and his ghost’s clinging to the house made even more sense when they found the newspaper article about his death. Two weeks after his brother’s death, Robert fell off a roof while working on replacing shingles. Two days before his family moved back into the Brook family home.

They’d found his grave in the local graveyard after finding that information, digging him up, salting him, and lighting him up.

Jess had been right.

Digging a grave with two people was a hell of a lot easier than digging the grave with one person. Two people made it easier simply through the virtue of having an extra person to hold the flashlight, if nothing else.

“I don’t feel sorry for him.”

“Why not?” Jess blinked, looking down at the other, surprised, fingers hesitating in the other’s hair.

“The guy did what he had to do. He knew what he deserved, so he took it back. Simple enough.”

“He killed his family!”

“But he got what he wanted.”

“No he didn’t,” she shifted, sitting up a little straighter. “He fell off the roof, and didn’t manage to get anything. He killed his family, and got nothing except death for the bargain!”

“His ghost managed to keep the house for almost a century,” Meg shrugged, twisting a little so that she was still leaning on the other woman’s chest, but with her back to her. Toying with the strings of her hood – Jess’ sweater, that is, that she happened to be wearing – she grinned. “So I don’t feel sorry for him in the slightest.”

“…you have a sort of weird way of looking at things,” she murmured, quietly, still fussing with the other’s hair.

“I guess so,” she shrugged, still smirking. “It works, though.”

“Yeah,” Jess glanced out the window again, frowning slightly. “So, ah… where are we going? Do we know yet? I mean, I know where the bus is going, but…”

“Yeah, remember, the werewolf in New Haven.”

“Right,” she murmured, eyes flicking to the other passengers on the bus, a little worried that others might have overheard them. While she was willing to accept that she and Meg were hunting supernatural creatures and going out doing something to stop them, she still kept thinking that someone was going to realize it and freak out on them. Yet no one ever really seemed to notice. No one cared, even if they did hear.

“Humans are stupid,” Meg said, suddenly.

Jess blinked, looking down at the other woman. “Huh?”

“Humans are stupid. You’re looking at all these people on the bus wondering when someone is going to catch onto the fact that you hunt things that want to kill them. But they’re stupid, they don’t care. Even if you were to run in to save their very life, they wouldn’t care.”

“That’s not true…” she murmured.

“Watch,” Meg shifted, and stood up, then hollered, “Ladies and Gentlemen… listen up. My girl Jess and I here, we are going out to hunt a werewolf in New Haven, Connecticut.”

A few people blinked at her, and a lot of them muttered in amongst themselves, but no one said anything.

Meg flopped back into her seat, leaning back against Jess with an almost evil snicker. “See?”

“You are insane!” Jess hissed.

“Heh, maybe,” she snickered, stretching, tilting her head back to grin up at the other woman. “But I proved my point. Humans are stupid. Blind little sheep, following each other over the edge of the cliff to their own deaths. Individual humans can be brilliant, but the moment you put them in a group, they lose their minds and turn into blathering followers.”

“Are you suggesting people as a group aren’t worth saving?” she frowned.

“Of course not.” She stretched. “Humans are fascinating. The world would be a terribly boring place if they were gone.”

Jess snorted, shaking her head.

\----

 

_ You're holding my hand but you don't understand  
So where I am going, you won't be in the end _

“This is the stupidest idea we have ever had.”

“Pansy,” Meg drawled, smirking slightly. She tugged the clip out of the gun she was holding, considering the ammo, then slammed it back in. 

“Guns?! I don’t know to shoot guns!” she hissed, flushed.

“That’s why we’re in a shooting range, darling,” Meg drawled, fixing her goggles, then lifting the heavy headphones from around her neck, hesitating. “Aren’t you going to put yours on? You know, to prevent the hearing damage?”

Jess hesitated, but did slowly lift the headset, setting it on, fitting it carefully over her ears.

Smirking slightly, the other woman fell into the proper stance, and fired ten rounds in quick succession. The gun snapped up slightly with each shot, and Jess winced with every one, even though she was wearing the headphones and the sound was muffled. 

Setting the gun down on the little ledge, Meg pressed the button to make the target move towards them, and grinned. “Check it out.”

“Pretty good,” Jess murmured, considering the outline of a person, with bullet holes through the paper in both the head and the chest. “Wow, you really are pretty good at this.”

“Toldja I was. Your turn.”

She swallowed, considering the silver gun that she had been holding, swallowing. “Are you sure?”

“You’re not afraid of it, are you?”

“I am not afraid of it,” she muttered. “There’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s just a gun. For pete’s sake, I’ve done a whole pile of self defense courses, I’m not stupid. It’s just… I’ve never really shot a – what is it?”

“Handgun,” Meg drawled, leaning on the barrier between them and the range.

“I know that it’s a handgun, what exactly is it?” Jess rolled her eyes.

“A .38 special.” She smirked, considering her with a grin. “It’s often referred to as a lady’s gun, though I can’t imagine why… the thing is pretty friggin’ big, and it’s got a good recoil to it, but it’s easy to load, and in terms of grip, I think it’s great for your hand size. Just remember, when you shoot, not to brace yours arms too hard. People think they need to lock their elbows, but if you do, that’s going to make your arms go flying up. Keep your elbows bent just a little, and absorb the recoil, okay?”

Jess nodded, swallowing. “I can do that.”

“Good. Now, you remember how I told you to stand, to hold the gun, to aim, right?”

She nodded, swallowing again. 

“Just do it, okay?”

“Yes, of course,” she nodded, and shifted forward, standing where Meg indicated, aiming carefully. The other woman rested her hand on Jess’ lower back, holding her carefully in place, almost a comforting thing. It certainly managed to give her strength, and she took a deep breath, aiming carefully along the length of the gun, and fired at the black and white silhouette at the back of the range.

The .38 special recoiled like a son of a bitch, and Jess gasped, startled. She could feel it in her palms, up her arms, in her shoulders. 

“Nice,” Meg murmured, fingernails scratching softly at the other woman’s lower back through her t-shirt. “You didn’t miss by much, either. Go on, take another shot, you’ve got five more.”

Nodding, Jess took another shot, then another.

With each progressive shot, it got easier to do, and actually felt better to do, as well, until by the sixth shot, she felt downright confident and secure in her shots. The cartridge spent, she set the gun down on the little ledge, surprised to find that she was panting softly, and watched as the other pulled her silhouette target up so that she could see.

“You missed outright with one,” Meg considered the outline. “One outside the body, three in the body, and one in the head! Nicely done!”

“Considering it’s my first time,” she murmured, shivering.

“…shooting a gun get you all hot and ready?” the other drawled, looking up at Jess with a pleased smirk.

“Of course not,” she panted.

“Heh…” the shorter woman snickered, and picked up Jess’ gun, and handed it back to her. “Reload. Remember, this has to be like second nature to you, by the time we’re done. You have to be able to practically do it in your sleep.”

Jess nodded, and took several bullets from the little cardboard box they’d brought with them, clumsily sliding them into place.

\----

 

_ There’s an art in seclusion, production in depression  
If a stranger turns up missing, this song is my confession _

Jess liked hunting with a partner. Together, they slipped through the streets, though her partner was smaller than her, and it was easier for the other woman to duck under fire escapes and between narrow spaces, behind dumpsters and through crowds of people. They were looping together, around the area where the last sighting of the unnaturally large and people friendly wolf had been reported. There had been close to a dozen sightings of the wolf, which made them think that the human that shift once a month into this beast lived in the area.

There was a clatter further up the block, metal garbage cans toppling over, and Jess tugged her cell phone out of her pocket, flicking to her address book, and dialing. 

A moment later, Meg’s voice came over the phone. “I heard it too.”

“Loop around, we’ll pin it in,” Jess murmured, already hurrying towards the source of the sound, her trainers pounding on the pavement as she did, flicking the cell back closed and shoving it in her pocket as she sped up, hands free now. She could feel the gun in the back of her jeans, heavy against her skin, tucked between the belt and the fabric of her pants, and wasn’t sure she was confident enough in her ability to actually grab it.

The shorter blond came around the corner at the end of the block, and nodded when she saw Jess, holding up her gun so that the street lights glinted off the dark metal.

Swallowing, Jess nodded, and tugged her own gun out, terrified to use it.

There was another clatter of cans, then a soft mewling cry, like a cat trapped in a box, and Jess sped up, alarmed. It was against the plan – which was to move in slowly and together so that they could pin the thing and shoot it – but the sound reminded her of something she’d heard once when she was visiting her grandmother in the hospital once – a baby who had been sick, and the nurses were moving the bassinet from the mother’s room to the intensive care ward for children. It had let out a mewl just like that.

Her speed startled the thing they were searching for – which was a massive, silver furred wolf. Its head snapped up when she approached, lips curled back to bare its bloody teeth.

The mewl, as she was able to see the moment she saw the scene, was not from a baby in a bassinet like she remembered the sound, but rather from a man, lying limply on the pavement, chest rising and falling rapidly, eyes dull and blank. His throat had been mostly torn open, meaning that he was making gasping, sucking sounds as he breathed, the sound almost like a weak cry.

“Jess, you idiot, shoot it!”

Her eyes snapped up to Meg for a moment, distracted from the bloody mess, and the wolf bolted forward, those massive bloody jaws open and hungry as it leapt at Jess.

She fired, having no idea whether or not she’d managed to hit it, though she heard a cry of pain – more feminine than canine. Wincing at her terrible attempt, she shifted the gun again, and fired, the muzzle flaring as another bullet left the gun – but this one struck the chest of the charging wolf, and it let out a yelp of pain, listing to the side. 

Meg’s gun barked in the silence, then the wolf cried out again, sagging slightly to the pavement. “Kill it!”

Jess bolted towards the massive wolf, which had half fallen onto its side, looking up at her with intelligent eyes. As it lay there, she could see how this massive thing was usually human, with a normal life, who behaved as a normal person would. 

She hesitated.

“Kill it, you idiot, kill it before it kills you!” Meg screamed.

Started from her hesitation, Jess looked up at the other woman, heart clenching. 

The werewolf hauled itself up from the pavement, and leapt up at Jess, teeth bared, determined to rip her apart as it had its victim. A strange sort of cold shifted over her, like she’d been plunged into ice water, and time seemed to slow. The wolf was still rising, hind legs crouched tightly with the power of adrenaline coursing through them. The front paws of the werewolf weren’t entirely like a real wolves paws, but instead more like a furry version of human hands, with long vicious black claws instead of nails, stretching out as it reached towards her, trying to rip into her. 

Jess howled, and fired into the massive beast’s face, shot after shot going off in the minimal space between them, one striking it just above the eye, one in its mouth, one in the throat.

With a sort of sick sound, like a sack of flesh and bones instead of an actual animal, it crunched to the asphalt, head thumping onto the ground, tongue lolling out of its open mouth. She hesitated, ice water still running through her veins, and when the other woman shouted for her to separate the head from the heart, she crouched, jerking her new hunting knife out of its sleek black leather holster that was strapped to her right calf.

Grabbing a fistful of fur between the beast’s pointed ears, she jerked it up, easily able to ignore the fading intelligent look in its eyes this time as she slashed the blade across the neck, twice, until she actually tossed the head aside.

Panting, she hesitated, blood dripping off her blade, more gore splattered across her chest as she watched the body shift and change. What had been a wolf a moment before was now a beautiful young woman, naked, long black hair matted with blood as it lay yards from her own body, which twitched a few times before going still.

The alley was silent for a moment, then a gun went off again, and Jess looked up sharply.

Meg was standing over the man that had been ripped apart by the wolf, her gun in her hand and still pointed at the head of the now very dead man, with the bullet hole in his forehead. 

“You shot him,” Jess gasped, still crouched on the ground.

“Mercy kill,” the other woman smirked, and tucked the gun back into the back of her jeans again.

“He could have lived!”

“Sure, he could have.” She nodded, considering Jess. There was blood covering Meg’s left arm and the left side of her chest. “And then he would have shifted into a wolf next month, and we would have had to come back to kill another werewolf. I say again. Mercy kill.”

Jess stood, slowly, her knife still tightly gripped in her hand. “You’re bleeding.”

“Hm?” the other blinked, then glanced at her shoulder. “You mean this? Naw, that was her. When you shot the wolf, she kind of managed to spray me with blood.”

“Oh.” She murmured. It looked more like Meg had been shot, but she couldn’t imagine the other lying about that.

“C’mon.” the shorter woman held out her hand. “We need to go, before someone calls the cops on us and we end up in jail for a double homicide. Come on Jess, we need to go. We need to get cleaned up.”

The taller woman nodded, panting, and took Meg’s hand, following her willingly.

\----

 

__What you get is what you see  
It won’t take much to get hooked on me  
So shoot me right into your skin  
And I will be your heroin

The hotel they were staying in had a small shower, and though Jess wished they had a big tub instead of a stand up shower, at least it had steamy hot water, and she stood under the pouring water, head leaning back against the back of the shower wall, eyes closed. 

She was beginning to get a little freaked out by the adrenaline that seemed to pour through her veins every time she got close to killing something. It was worrying her. It wasn’t exactly normal for a person to feel cold and on edge whenever something tried to hurt her, was it? But it wasn’t like the cold shiver that swept over her hurt. It felt good, probably better than it should, like she had regained some sharp piece of power that she had been denied somehow. The weirdest thing was, Jess had no idea when she had ever been denied of power.

The only thing she knew was that the power she felt when she was hunting was as different from her fiery memories of hell as it could possibly be. 

Jess jumped when the frosted glass shower door slid open, and she looked up, sharply.

Meg slipped into the little shower stall, grinning as she ducked under the hot water, closing the door behind her. She was as naked as Jess, but rather more shameless about it, as she pressed into the other woman, pinning Jess to the wall. “Hi.”

“….hi.” Jess blinked, surprised. “What are you doing?”

“Feeling amazing,” she smirked, splaying her fingers across Jess’ stomach, smoothing her hands across her skin. “This hunting thing… gets my blood pumping, gets my heart pounding, makes me feel amazing. So I thought maybe I’d come make sure you feel amazing too.”

She smirked, and reached up to brush the short blond bangs off the other’s forehead. “And here I thought you were waiting.”

“Fuck waiting,” Meg smirked.

“Not the reaction I really expected from you,” she laughed softly, flushed. “Are you in the mood for something particular?”

“Oh yes,” Meg drawled. “Most definitely.”

“Yeah?” Jess laughed, but leaned closer to her, to kiss her.

The other’s fingertips stopped her, soft hands pressed against her lips. “None of that,” she murmured. “I’m saving that for later. For something special.”

She hesitated. “Then… what do you want?”

“Naked fun times,” she drawled. “But no kissing. Kissing is for something special.”

“…you want me, but you don’t want to kiss me,” Jess said, slowly, frowning at her. “What am I, your little paid whore?”

“You are not little, I don’t plan on paying you… and believe me, you’re going to like it,” Meg may not have wanted to kiss Jess properly, but she did pepper kisses along the taller woman’s collarbone, her hands shifting down to rest her thumbs in the hollows of Jess’ hips, rubbing at the sharp edges of her hips with the pads of her thumbs. 

“What, you’re my very own Pretty Woman, then?”

“I am pretty, actually,” she blinked.

“No, I mean… Pretty Woman… you know, the old movie from the nineties… Richard whatsiface and Julia Roberts?” She faltered. “She’s a prostitute and he’s a super rich man who wants to hire a date for this big event coming up, and they fall in love and everything, but she’s all… I will do anything kinky you want, but I won’t kiss you and they finally kiss later and it’s a big deal. How can you have not seen that movie? Everyone’s seen that movie!”

Meg shrugged. “I don’t see every movie in the world.”

“Well, yeah, but… it’s one of those classics, you know?” she flushed. “It’s exactly like that.”

“Trust me,” she drawled. “It’s not exactly like that.”

Jess hesitated, breath catching slightly. “I dunno, Meg. Maybe it’s not a good idea right now…”

“It’s a great idea,” Meg drawled, sliding her thigh between Jess’, and rocking mischievously against her. “Believe me, Jess, in a few minutes, I can make you forget that you ever reconsidered this.”

“You say that now, but you might just be wrong,” she smirked faintly.

“What… you need a deep loving commitment before you get orgasms?” the shorter woman drawled. “What, you’re married to your fingers?”

Jess snorted. “I never said that.”

“Then stop making silly complaints, and let me touch you in naughty places,” she smirked, fingers sliding lower. “Yes?”

“I guess,” she murmured.

“Good,” Meg nodded, slipping her fingertips between the other’s lips, sucking on Jess’ collarbone as she teasingly clipped her clitoris with her fingernail, grinning against the other’s skin when the taller woman bucked slightly.

Jess knew better. She knew she should probably point out that this was stupid, especially since Meg was clearly just in it for the mindless pointless sex – well, not that sex was pointless, there was always a point, but pointless in terms of a long term point – and didn’t even want to kiss her. But on the other hand, Jess hadn’t lied to Meg when she told her she was the only solid person, the only one that didn’t feel like a shadow. That, and frankly, she was actually just fine with the idea of mindless pointless sex.

Looping her arms lazily around the other woman’s waist, Jess held her slightly, gasping when one of Meg’s fingers slid slowly into her. “Oh!”

“Liked that, didja?” she smirked, nipping at the other’s collarbone. “I thought you might.”

“I’d have to be a moron to not like it,” she murmured, breath hitching again when Meg curled her finger inside her, fingernails scraping slightly, thumb pressing into her clit. “Shit… Meg… that feels good…”

“I know,” she drawled, smirking crookedly. “I’m damn good at this.”

\----

 

__I am the crack of your voice  
(Static in the sound)  
I am the bias in your choice  
(Your lack of common ground)

Jess had slipped away from the motel room in the middle of the night to see if she could find an open coffee place. There was a little coffee shop on the corner of the main street that she found, finally, and soon sat curled in the back corner of the almost circular dining room, sipping at a paper cup of half black coffee, half hot chocolate. 

There were no other customers here. It was just her and the two girls behind the counter, working, who were chatting as one baked off the fresh pastries for the morning and the other cleaned everything in sight, which gave her a comforting lull of background noise, making her feel less alone.

Shifting slightly, Jess opened another newspaper, flicking slowly through the pages as she looked for any information. A hunt.

Sighing softly, she leaned back to grind the heels of her hands into her eyes, then jumped, alarmed, when her cell phone rang. Picking it up, she blinked at it, frowning slightly, considering the screen. Unknown Caller, the screen read.

Flicking it open with her thumb, she held it to her ear and said, “Hello?”

“Is this Jess?”

She hesitated, frowning slightly. “….this is.”

“Oh thank god,” the man’s voice said, sighing softly. “I didn’t think I’d be able to get a hold of you… shit.”

“I’m sorry… who are you?” she frowned, still holding the phone tightly, brows furrowed as she considered the voice. She didn’t recognize it, she didn’t know who it was, but she could tell that the man was desperate. “Do I know you?”

“No, sorry, um… a friend of mine gave me your number… my name’s Stuart. Um, my friends… they said you were at the historical society in their town… asking about the Brooks?”

Cold rushed through her insides, and she swallowed. “Huh. Okay.”

“Right, and then… he said… there’s been nothing happening in that house. Nothing. Since you came there, and talked to them and looked around… it’s been gone. I – did you get rid of them?” his voice sounded very small, like he was almost scared about it.

“Why do you ask?” Jess asked tightly, standing, half expecting this to be some freak who was going to start screaming at her for getting rid of the ghosts.

“Because I got a problem,” Stuart said tightly, and she could actually hear his footsteps in the background as he paced while talking to her. “I got a ghost or something… it’s in my house and my… I just… can you help me?”

“I – you’re going to have to tell me more than ‘it’s in my house’.” Jess frowned slightly.

He let out a long, shaky breath. “About six months ago, I moved into a new house. Everything seemed just fine at first, then about a month ago, my wife started… she started acting differently. Weird. I thought maybe it was just the move, but she wasn’t acting like my wife at all, she was acting like some stranger, and it started to freak me out, and then… then I found her doing stuff that made even less sense, and…”

“Stuff,” she repeated.

“She was in the garage,” he hissed. “She had used spray paint to paint this weird symbol on the floor, and she was sitting in the middle of it, with this rabbit in front of her, and she’d killed it and gutted it, and its entrails were all over the floor, and – and she pretended that she didn’t know that she’d done it, but…”

Jess shuddered, closing her eyes for a moment. Gross. “And is that the biggest event? The one that stands out the most?”

“Well… what’s happening now is… is actually freaking me out more.” He whispered.

“Now?” she repeated, frowning.

“I freaked out,” his voice was still trembling. “I went on the internet, and I did a ton of research, and I – I found a whole bunch of information for fighting ghosts and spirits and devils and all sorts of evil things that might come into your house.”

“Yeah, there are a lot of those online,” Jess nodded, quietly. She had stumbled across many of them herself when she’d first started trying to figure out how best to do what she was planning to do.

“Yeah, well… this one had lots of protective symbols, you know? Things to put up to scare things away.”

“Yeah, like the symbol she’d painted?”

“Nothing like that,” Stuart said quickly. “But I did a whole bunch up… I mean… I – I’m not a gung ho ghost hunter type of guy, but I’m not – not really a skeptic either, you know? Like… I believe it’s possible, so I thought… I thought this was the best thing to do.”

“Stuart.” She said firmly, trying to redirect his panicked rambling into something more pointed and more effective. “What happened?”

“Well, there was this one symbol… I hid them all, you see. I didn’t want this ghost thing that was making my wife act like this to see that I was trying to scare it off, I just wanted it to go, so I – I hid all of the symbols I’d painted, and this one was under the big old Persian rug in the living room, and – and…”

“Yes, Stuart? What then?”

He still sounded reluctant to answer the question, and dimly in the background she heard a crash, like something had been knocked over.

“Stuart,” she said sharply, glaring out the windows at the darkness. “What happened?”

“She stepped onto the rug,” he said, slowly, swallowing audibly. “And she hasn’t stepped off since. She can’t. She’s stuck there, like… like it was a mime act or something, and she’s trying to pound on the glass walls of a box, and – I just really don’t know what to do, but it’s starting to really freak me out, and – “ there was another crash. “And she’s getting angrier, and… I don’t know what to do!”

Jess shuddered. “Where are you?”

“Nebraska.” He whispered in the phone, and there was another crash. “Oh god, please, please hurry…”

“I’ll do what I can… give me the address,” Jess scrambled for a pen, scrawling the directions he recited onto a napkin, knuckles white where she gripped the phone. “Okay, don’t do anything to antagonize her, or anything. Just keep an eye on things. Hold her there. Wait. Has her appearance changed? At all?”

Stuart hesitated again.

“I need all details, Stuart, if I’m going to be able to help your wife,” she reminded him, firmly.

He swallowed again, and murmured, “Sometimes. When she gets really angry, or when she slams herself against that invisible wall too much… her eyes…”

“What about her eyes?”

“They kinda… flicker. Like the pupil has gotten too big.” He whispered. “She kinda… her eyes go black. All black. Like no whites or anything, just black.”

That didn’t sound promising in the slightest. Shit. “Okay,” Jess nodded, frowning. “Okay. We’ll see what we can do.”

“Please,” he begged softly, “Hurry. I dunno how much longer I can keep this up…”

“Of course,” Jess nodded, trying to sound soothing, folding up the napkin with his address and shoving it in her pocket. “I’m going to come. Just try to hold things together, okay?”

“Y-yeah. Okay.”

“I’ll see you then.” Jess said, and hung up.

Taking a deep breath, she shook her head, and headed out of the coffee shop to go wake up her – well, whatever it was that Meg was to her – so they could leave.  
  
[Part Six](http://sparrowshellcat.dreamwidth.org/40588.html)

\----

 

  



	6. sparrowshellcat | And Sing of Sweet Surrender - Part Six

  


 

  


__Bruises cover your arms  
Shaking in the fingers with the bottle in your palm  
And the best is, no one knows who you are  
Just another girl alone at the bar

The car they were driving to Nebraska was small and old and completely not really theirs. Meg had found it in an alley behind their motel when Jess had come to tell her about the possible job a few states over, and actually hot wired it. Jess had felt guilty for the first few hours of driving, but eventually, she pointed out that it was better than the Greyhound anyway, so…

Besides, sitting in the passenger seat, Jess had noticed that there were a strange little assortment of tools in the car that didn’t really make sense, including several screwdrivers and a wrench, and finally realized that the car was full of the equipment necessary to basically rob cars.

She felt much less guilty about it, now.

Flicking through a thick stack of social insurance cards and driver’s licenses that had been sitting in the glove compartment, she hummed as Meg smoked her steady way through one of the three packs of smokes that had been left by the previous owners of the car. “You know, it wouldn’t be hard to pretend we were the people in some of these cards. There are a couple that look like us. Sort of. If you squint a little.”

“People don’t usually look closely at the pictures.” Meg shrugged, flicking ashes out the window. 

“Another instance of ‘humans are stupid’?” Jess smirked slightly.

“You better believe it.”

Shaking her head slightly, she sighed softly, and shoved the cards into the glove compartment again. “I’m starting to understand what you meant, actually… I’ve been watching people, you know, just out of the windows and stuff, as we walk past them, drive past them… they do act kinda sheep like, don’t they?”

“Like flocks, throwing themselves over cliffs like lemmings.”

“That was actually a myth,” Jess rolled her eyes. “Walt Disney heard that lemmings threw themselves over cliffs in droves, so he sent a film cry out to see if they could record the phenomenon. But once they got out there, they discovered that lemmings do not – and have never – actually done so. So they put a wooden barricade up, set up the camera, and sent a man to chase the things down the hill and over the cliff, just so that they could record it and put it on their Magical Kingdom show. Ever since, kids all over the world think that these stupid little rodents throw themselves off cliffs to kill themselves.”

“I’ve heard that,” Meg said thoughtfully. “But humans do that.”

The other snorted. “They do not.”

“Do so.” The driver smirked, drumming her fingers against the steering wheel. “Think about it. Jonestown, for one.”

Jess flushed, squirming slightly in her seat. “That was… an aberration. That wasn’t normal human behavior, that was…”

“A group of people acting like people and behaving like a flock of lemmings. Or sheep. Sheep might throw themselves over cliffs the same way that lemmings don’t, I don’t really know. Either way, it was humans in a group. And humans in a group are idiots.”

“You do realize you’re human too, right?” she snorted, shaking her head.

“Only technically,” Meg drawled. “So you never really told me the full details of this case, other than you got a freaked out guy in Nebraska. Planning on telling me anything before we actually arrive?”

“Guy moved into a new house, wife got hit by some kind of ghosts, has started acting… unlike herself, and he put up a bunch of anti-ghost and anti-spirit wards, and now she’s… trapped on the rug. Acting like a mime, only much louder.”

The other woman barked in laughter. “Fuck, that’s brilliant!”

Jess snorted. “Brilliant?”

“Yeah, brilliant! I can’t believe someone actually managed to get caught in a – that is just awesome. Fucking weird, but fucking awesome.” Meg shook her head, smirking. “That is just really awesome.”

“You have the weirdest sense of humour ever,” she rolled her eyes, and tugged her laptop out of her duffel bag, cracking it open. “I’ve looked into a bunch of different symbols that could do that… it really depends completely on which kind of thing they’ve got in their house, but he said its ghosts, which based on what I know makes sense, because he said it happened after they moved into a new house. I think I know the symbol for that…”

“Mmhmm,” the other nodded.

“I wish I’d thought to ask him what exactly it looked like, though, if only because knowing what symbol he used is the only way to know exactly what is plaguing her. She found it on the internet, so… it could be anything I’m afraid.”

“Something to remember for next time,” Meg shrugged, lighting a new cigarette off the end of her old one.

“Seriously, chain smoking now?” Jess crinkled her nose slightly, frowning at her.

“I’ve been without these for ages. They make me feel good.”

“Feel good? Everything I’ve read about smoking is that it feels like shit, people just do it because of the addiction,” she snorted.

“Clearly, you are not a smoker.”

Jess laughed softly. “Yeah, no I am not a smoker. Never have.”

“Maybe you don’t know what you’re missing out on,” she grinned. “Every fresh one makes me feel great.”

She snorted, shaking her head. “Whatever.”

Jess’ cell phone rang, and she frowned, surprised, lifting her hips off the car seat to dig in her pocket, digging it out, and flicking it open. Stuart’s number was on the screen, and she sighed, answering, “Hey, Stuart?”

“Jess!” he gasped. 

“Yeah, it’s me… are you okay?” she frowned, glancing at Meg, who watched her, the cigarette dangling from the corner of her mouth, lazily almost falling out from between her lips. Jess had a momentary flash of “We can’t stop here, this is bat country,” and closed her eyes, looking out the other window as she tried to keep up the conversation. “What happened?”

“She’s starting to freaking me out. She’s really starting to freak me out,” he keened, and she could hear the panic in his voice. 

“What is she doing?” she asked, frowning. 

“She’s just… she’s taunting me,” he said, quietly, and in the background, she could vaguely hear laughter, a cruel, high pitched, mocking sound. “Saying all these things about how I’m a failure and I’m never going to be able to get her back, and… everything. It’s terrible.”

“Well, we’re only about half an hour away, just keep an eye on her. But don’t do anything… don’t get too near to her, okay?”

“Yeah, of course.” He said, quickly.

“The symbol you used… to hold her.” She frowned, shifting slightly in her seat. “What does it look like?”

“It’s… a circle? With a star inside… and a whole lot of symbols and stuff… I don’t know what it was called, I’m sorry… I just… I wanted to try something… I don’t know which one it is…”

“Hey, round with a star and symbols is actually a great start,” she assured him, quickly. “That helps.”

“Okay, okay.” He murmured, quickly. “Can… you hurry?”

“Hurrying,” she promised, and reached over to touch her lover’s shoulder, nodding at her, prompting her to speed up if she could. Meg grinned, almost maniacally, and did exactly that, pleased. “We’ll be there soon. Within the half hour.”

“Thank you,” Stuart gasped.

 

When Stuart had said that his wife was trapped inside something like a mime’s glass box, he hadn’t been kidding.

The woman stood in the centre of a slightly worn Persian carpet, looking just fine, especially considering that she’d been locked inside of an invisible circle for three days now, with no food, no water, no washroom. She was laughing, actually, pounding on the circular walls of the invisible barrier she was behind, cackling with glee at the three of them.

Standing off to the side of the living room, Jess flinched slightly every time that she slammed herself against the wall again, but not nearly as bad as Stuart was. 

Unlike his wife, Stuart looked like hell. He had been eating and drinking – somewhat – but he clearly hadn’t been sleeping, and clearly this stress was not just from the three days, it had been from days, weeks, possibly even months before. He had said that it had been going on for awhile. Clearly it had been taking a deep toll on him.

“Okay, so… this is what she does, is it?” Jess asked, softly. She wanted to keep it as polite as possible, but it was hard when Meg kept smirking, snickering slightly. 

Stuart nodded. “Yeah, this is what she does.”

“Can I see the symbol she drew in the garage?” Meg asked, drawling. 

“I… kind of destroyed it…” Stuart said slowly. “I attacked it with spray paint, painted all over it, tried to mess it up…”

“I still want to see it,” the other said, firmly, and Jess frowned, considering her. It seemed like a strange request… she thought that she was the more educated on hunting one, why did her friend want to see the symbol? “Which direction?”

“Ah… that way…” he pointed. “Last door at the end of the hallway…”

“Good,” she nodded, and headed that direction.

“Okay,” Jess murmured, frowning slightly, and shook her head, looking back at the woman in the circle. “Well, we need to help somehow. I looked into a few different things… tried to figure out what to do… if it’s what I think it is, we need an exorcism.”

“Exorcism?!” the man hissed, looking at her in unbridled horror. “Exorcism?”

She nodded. “She seems possessed.”

“I – but I mean… I’ve seen… possessions? That’s what – you think she’s got a demon in her?!”

Jess nodded, considering the woman, who cackled at her, gleeful. “Yeah.”

“I thought that was all fake!” he yelped. “I’ve never – “

“You’re going to burn in hell, motherfuckers!” she howled, cackling, palms slammed against the invisible barrier. “I am going to enjoy stripping the flesh from your bones, slice you apart…”

“Heh. Yeah right.” 

Jess’ eyes flicked to her lover, startled. Meg was standing in front of the barrier, not quite touching the rug, just grinning broadly, looking as though every one of her teeth was visible as she grinned. Physically, that was impossible of course, but she looked somewhat shark like as she grinned, viciously. Chuckling deeply, she shook her head. “I looked at that symbol of yours. I looked. You are not going to be ripping the flesh from anyone’s bones, you idiot. You’re not even powerful enough to try.”

“Meg?” Jess asked softly. 

The other’s eyes flicked to her for a moment, and she started to laugh, chucking deeply. “Ha! She thinks she’s a torturer, Jess! She really thinks she’s a torturer!”

“…and she’s not?” she whispered, a little alarmed by the change that had come over her.

Stuart was backing up, getting further away from them, eyes wide and starting to look even more panicked than he had before, which was really saying something, as the man had looked like he was going to have a nervous breakdown before.

“Oh, come now, Jess…” Meg drawled. “You know the torturers personally, don’t you? Of course she’s not one.”

“What?” she took a step back herself, that cold feeling settling in her gut again. She knew this feeling. It was the feeling she got when she wanted to kill something, when the need to destroy and demolish something settled over her. Her fingers curled into fists, and she stood up a little straighter, watching her.

“Don’t tell me you don’t remember them? The blood boiling in your veins, your flesh searing off as they flay you… every cut of the knife…”

Jess hadn’t told her lover everything. She hadn’t actually mentioned to Meg that she was pretty sure the situation Stuart had described sounded like her research of demons, she hadn’t mentioned that she thought this was a situation that deemed (ww?) an exorcism. At the time, she didn’t mention it because she didn’t want to sound like an idiot if it was proven to be something else, but now she wondered if there was more to it than that. 

This meant that she hadn’t told Meg that she’d brought holy water, or that she had carefully transcribed an exorcism, and while she had been walking to get coffee this morning before they left, she’d been practicing it over and over.

Tugging the little bottle out of her jean pocket, wishing that she’d gotten something bigger instead of the almost comically small bottle she’d found in a huge Catholic church’s gift shop, Jess flicked the cap open, and swung her arm, water splashing over both women – the possessed in the circle, and Meg.

Both screamed, reeling back, and Jess knew.

Stuart let out a scream like a little girl, and the smell of urine seeped into the edges of their senses. If she had been focused, she might have recoiled in disgust at the idea that he had just pissed himself in fear, but that was the last thing on Jess’ mind. She was feeling cold and sharp, all angles and sharp glass, focused.

Meg snapped her head back up to snarl at Jess. Her eyes were black, and for the first time, Jess understood what it meant when someone said that something was ‘black as sin’. Her eyes were the colour of evil.

“Bad move, little girl,” Meg snarled.

Jess flicked the holy water at her again, deeply satisfied at the scream that the other let out again, and ran towards her, trying to tackle her and throw her into the circle that had pinned the other possessed.

Meg was fast. Far faster than Jess had given her credit for, and was gone before she had a chance to even touch her, teeth bared and eyes black as she stood on the other side of the room, standing differently, hunched almost, fingers curled into claws. Somehow, even though she looked exactly the same as she had before, was the same woman she had been the entire time Jess had known her, she looked different, seemed different. She was just… twisted. Like there was something deeply wrong and broken.

“You were this all the time, weren’t you?” Jess hissed, slightly breathless, yanking her knife out of the sheath.

“What, a demon?” Meg drawled, cackling slightly. “Fuck yes.”

“You bitch,” she snapped.

“Mm, and you didn’t seem to care, did you?”

“I fucking cared,” she snarled, and bolted towards Meg again, knife in hand. She never made it there, but instead was slammed back against the wall, gagging slightly, gasping in pain. There was a picture frame digging into the small of her back, and she groaned, arching slightly, trying to move. She was actually pinned to the wall, her feet off the ground, and it hurt.

“You are so much weaker than you think you are,” Meg sauntered towards her, thumbs hooked in her pockets, grinning sardonically. “You think you’re strong, but you’re just a broken little girl.”

Jess struggled to get off the wall, arching, fingers still clenching the handle of the knife so hard her fingers actually hurt. 

“You think you’re strong, but you’re not. You’re not strong at all. You’re a broken little girl who got broken and screwed up and fucked up in hell and you’re just trying to act like everything is fine, but everything isn’t fine, Jess. Things are broken and shattered inside of you and there is no way you can pretend to be a normal person anymore.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she panted, struggling to get off the wall.

“You were in hell, girl! I know you were, you think a demon wouldn’t recognize that?!” Meg roared with laughter.

“You lied to me!” she howled. 

“You never asked, did you?” Meg bared her teeth at her in a vicious smirk, amused. “The only question is… how did you get back? That’s what I want to know… how you got out of the hole.”

Still pinned to the wall, Jess flicked the little bottle of water again, relieved she hadn’t let go of it, the last bits of the water flicking across Meg’s face. The shorter woman screamed in pain, reeling back, and Jess slid off the wall with a crash, landing onto her knees. Ripping a piece of paper out of her back jean pocket, she drew in a deep breath, then started reading quickly, trying to get the exorcism out as quickly as possible.

Meg let out a strangled yelp, and the woman still in the circle howled, displeased.

“ _Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus_ ,” Jess read, as quickly as she could, eyes flicking at both of the women, starting to feel more alarmed by the expression on their faces. 

“Damn you,” Meg gasped, and disappeared.

She had no idea how to explain it other than ‘Meg disappeared’. She was there one moment, and gone the next, with no sound to warn her, no flash of light, no cloud of smoke, no bamf. Just one moment, the blond woman was there, the next moment she was gone, and the space was empty there.

Stuart let out a plaintive wail, and there was a soft thump as he presumably fell over.

But even though she was feeling like she wanted to race to find Meg, to figure out where the hell her lover had gone – and how the fuck she thought she could get away with torturing Jess like this – there were more important things to deal with right now. Trembling slightly, trying to keep a tight grip on that cold feeling so she’d stay calm, and kept speaking, slowly standing as she did, watching the woman. “ _Omnis satanica potestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii, omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica_.”

The woman abruptly let out a cry, and threw her head back, black smoke erupting from her throat, seeming to fly out of the room like it had a mind of its own, and she slumped to the ground like a marionette whose strings had been cut.

“Oh god, honey!” Stuart wailed, dashing across the room to scoop her up, terrified.

Jess took a deep breath, watching him for a moment, then turned and promptly puked, wretching as she heaved, curled over, throwing up everything she had eaten in the last couple days.

She still felt cold, but it wasn’t the good hunting cold anymore.

She just felt cold.

Empty.

\----

 

 

“How did you know?!”

Jude bolted awake, confused and disoriented, slightly dizzy as she sat up. “Woah, what – what the - ?”

Sera kicked at her roommate’s bed, apparently unphased by Jude’s yelp of protest, that her bed wasn’t strong enough for that kind of abuse. Brandishing a sheath of papers at her, she snapped, “How did you know?!”

“Know what?” she grumbled, sitting up, brushing her hair back. “What’d I do now?”

“Meg.” She snapped.

Rubbing at her eyes, she blinked at her friend for a few moments, trying to figure out what exactly her best friend was saying, then finally put two and two together, and got what she was trying to say. “What, Meg, from my fanfic? Pretty sure I ain’t doing her, Sera, since, you know, she’s fictional.”

Sera swatted her best friend in the head with the stack of papers, and snapped, “How did you know about her?!”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about! What are you doing?!”

She threw the papers into Jude’s lap. It was clearly one of Carver Edlund’s manuscripts – she had spent enough time with them to recognize the manuscript immediately – with the title SCARECROW across the front.

“Oh! New book!” she beamed, eagerly, perking up, grabbing the papers, eagerly. 

“Yeah. New book. New central character.” Sera snapped. “Sam runs away from Dean and runs into a girl on the side of the road and she tries to convince him to leave Dean and strike out on his own.”

“Shit, sounds like another Sammy being a whiny bitch book,” she considered that, flicking through the first few pages. “Still, so long as Dean’s doing something interesting too, that can still be awesome… Dean on his own sometimes makes for great tension… what’s the chick’s name?”

“Meg.”

Jude hesitated, looking up at her friend with visible confusion. “Meg.”

“Meg.” Sera crossed her arms, frowning at her. “A short, petite woman with a sarcastic sense of humour, an ipod she seems to wear constantly, a habit of riding the Greyhounds, and a demon riding around inside of her.”

“Holy shit.” She murmured, eyes wide. “No way.”

“Yeah. Did you read this already, or something?” Sera demanded.

“What? No, of course not! I’ve never seen this before!”

“Then what, are you talking to Carver Edlund behind my back, or something, like… getting plot points and stuff before the book is even written, is that what it is?!”

“No!” Jude yelped. “I just sat down and wrote a story!”

“Then how come you managed to write about a character in the books before the character was even written about?!” the editor demanded, trembling slightly as she gestured at the manuscript, held together by thick staples. “How did you do that, Jude?!”

“It has to be a coincidence!” she yelped. “Because I didn’t know! I was just writing!”

“But why did you write that?!”

“I don’t know!” Jude yelped, starting to feel more freaked out by this herself. “You gotta believe me, seriously, I just wrote a fanfiction! You know, pointless stories that will never get published and we only write cause it’s fun! I was just writing! I don’t know how this happened, I swear, I’m sorry that I don’t know, it was just… it just happened, okay?!”

Sera groaned, running her hands through her short hair. “Nnngh… you’re sure?”

“Yes!” she yelped.

“….fine. Fine.” Sera hesitated, then said, slowly, “Maybe you should stop writing this story, though.”

“…maybe,” Jude agreed, trembling slightly.

\----

 

__I just can’t forget  
The blood  
The stitches  
The bite marks  
The kisses  
The glass memories reflecting back  
The suffocating black  
Ill milk of regret  
Just smile and pretend   
We never mattered anyway

Sitting in a field, leaning back against the bumper of her stolen car, Jess stared out at the darkness, silently. 

She was alone again, but this time she was actually glad of it. She didn’t like being alone still, there was still a sinking feeling in her gut every time that she was. But at least she wasn’t sitting around with a fucking demon.

Running her hand back through her hair, she sighed heavily, closing her eyes. 

She should have known. Jess was starting to feel like an idiot, honestly, for not having known that the cold, sarcastic bitch that she’d just spent the last three weeks with – hunted with, slept with, had sex with – wasn’t a normal woman. The signs were all there, now, when she looked back on it. When she considered it, it made perfect sense.

“I am a terrible hunter,” she murmured, quietly. 

In a sense, Meg had helped her. She had gotten her a gun, she had taught her to use it, she had taught her to shoot. She had helped her after that time she freaked out in the shower, she had kept her calm and steady for three weeks. And now she knew to be suspicious of every person she met again. Ever.

Scrubbing her face with her hands, Jess groaned. She should turn around, get in that fucking stolen car, and go. Track Sam down and throw herself in his arms, and fuck being kind to him because she didn’t want to traumatize him. Right now, all she needed was a hug, a warm embrace, the kindness of someone who actually cared what happened to her. Hell, she’d thought for one brief moment of time that Meg would actually be able to give that to her, but clearly, soulless demons… not really good at that.

But no matter how much she just desperately wanted some affection, Jess couldn’t do that to Sam. It wasn’t fair for her to be selfish.

Sighing softly, she wiped her eyes, and stood, reluctantly. 

She needed a drink.

\----

 

_ I am terrified, I think too much  
I get emotion when I drink too much _

The bar Jess pulled her little stolen beater into looked fairly quiet, all things considered. The building was old and worn and had seen considerably better days, as did the cars and trucks in the parking lot around it. There was a name on the front of the building, but it was barely readable, so she didn’t even try to decipher it. Instead, Jess just grabbed her coat – one of Sam’s old ones, scorched by the apartment fire but still wearable, and tugged it on. It covered her, and was thick and heavy, like a warm embrace. 

And the bottom hem covered her ass, which not only saved her from guys who might want to ogle, but it also kept her gun carefully out of sight.

Hooking her thumbs in her jean pockets, Jess slipped inside the swinging doors, and into a very different world from the cold dark night outside.

It was warm inside the bar. It was the press of bodies, the heat of men and women absorbed in their activities, filling the air with soft, sweaty humidity and the stench of beer and smoke. People were smoking inside, which she was pretty sure had been made illegal in these parts, but didn’t care. There was sawdust on the floor, a scratchy juke box in the corner, and locals drinking and smoking. She assumed locals, anyway, though it was quite a bit out of town, not in the usual place for a town bar. 

Slipping between two men having a loud and energetic conversation, she headed to the bar, running her hand through her hair. 

There was a middle aged woman behind the bar, dressed in plaid and denim, wiping down the counter between serving beers. She leaned on the scarred wooden counter lazily, and looked up as Jess approached, smirking faintly. “Hey there, darlin’. Haven’t seen you ‘round here before. New to the parts?”

“Hm.” Jess nodded, sliding into one of the stools, glancing around. “Passing through. Good night you got here.”

She shrugged, picking up one of the glasses, wiping at it as she considered Jess. “Good enough. Better than usual, even, but it works. What can I get you, sweetheart?”

“Double whiskey, neat.” She picked at the scarred wood, quietly.

“Bad night, hm?” the woman smirked, and poured her a glass, and accepted the girl’s money, easily. “You look like you’ve had a few rough ones, to be honest. Not that I’m tryin’ to say you look tired, but… you look tired.”

Jess snorted, and took a good swig of her whiskey. “I am tired. I am very fucking tired.”

“Boyfriend troubles?” the other woman smirked.

“You have no idea, lady.” She groaned.

The woman snorted, and offered her hand. “Ellen.”

“Jess,” she murmured, taking the other woman’s hand, and shaking. “Nice to meet you. This your place?”

“Mmmhmm.” She nodded, wiping at another glass. “My husband and I opened this place years ago, the two of us. He’s gone, but I keep the place up. S’not a bad living, really.”

“Mmm.” Jess nodded, quietly, knocking back the rest of her whiskey. 

“It’s been a really bad day, huh?” Ellen grinned. “Another?”

“Yeah, please.”

A few minutes later, when Ellen had moved onto the other end of the bar to speak to one of the other patrons and serve them, she sipped slowly at this glass, enjoying the burn as she looked around the bar, considering everything. She could see into the kitchen from this vantage point, to see a young man with a mullet cooking, spicing and chopping things with a ridiculous flair, as though performing for a televised cooking show audience. There was a small police scanner set on the window sill between the kitchen and the bar, which made her wonder how many criminals hung out at this place that they needed to keep an eye on the local cops. 

Beside the police scanner was a thick file folder, fair to bursting with newspaper clippings and notebook papers. Odd décor for a bar, really.

Ellen wandered back over to her end of the bar, and glanced at Jess’ empty glass. “You want another?”

“Yeah, please.” Jess pushed her glass towards the other. 

“You have had a really bad couple days, huh?” she smirked slightly, shaking her head. “Was it that boyfriend?”

“Naw… spent a couple days in hell.”

“Metaphorically, or literally?” Ellen smirked, considering her. 

“This time…” Jess murmured, “Metaphorically.”

The other woman considered her for a few moments, then topped the other woman’s glass up slightly. “Hungry? Ash is a bit of a ponce in the kitchen, but his food ain’t half bad. And ye really ought to be eatin’ if yer gonna be drinkin’ like a fish.”

“Yeah, sure… something sounds good. He make decent burgers?”

“Pretty good, yeah,” the other woman turned, hitting a bell that was sitting on the window sill and called, “Ash! Get yer ass over here, I got an order in!”

Jess took another swig of her whiskey as she waited, feeling the burn slip down her throat down to her belly, warning her slightly from the inside out. She hadn’t felt warm in a long time, so it helped, at least a little, slightly warm tingling spread down her arms and legs, til her toes and fingertips tingled. 

“Hey, mom… need a couple more – “ a woman jarred Jess’ thoughts as she leaned on the counter beside her, holding a tray against her chest as she did, grinning at Ellen. When the older woman held up a single hand, though, the newcomer – a short little spitfire of a girl with loose golden waves and bright, light filled brown eyes – rolled her eyes, and waited, grumpily. “Fine, fine… talk to Ash, ignore me.”

Jess considered her for a moment, frowning slightly. For a moment, she thought the girl looked out of place in the rough and tumble bar, but the longer she considered the blond, the more she realized that she fit right in amongst the drunk men. It also made Jess feel more out of place.

“Take a picture,” the girl drawled. “It’ll last longer.”

She blinked at her, confused.

Turning to face Jess properly, the girl drawled, “Seriously? How many drinks have you had tonight?”

“Sorry,” Jess flushed, quickly looking away.

“Hn. First time here, isn’t it?”

Jess nodded, running her fingertips along the edge of her glass, flushed. Now she felt like a freak, completely out of place.

“Everyone else already knows me. Newcomers always stare at me, trying to figure out what the hell I’m doing here. Hey.” She offered Jess her hand, grinning as the woman slowly took it. “Jo Harvelle. My mom owns the place.”

“Ah.” She nodded, shaking. This whole family seemed to like shaking hands. “Jess.”

“Hey Jess. Welcome to the Roadhouse.”

“Thanks,” she nodded, quietly, then looked up as Ellen came back over to talk to her daughter about the drinks that were needed for the various patrons that Jo was apparently serving around the room. 

“So you’ve met my daughter, then?” Ellen smirked, watching as Jo headed off, tray held up high enough to avoid behind jostled by distracted bar patrons. “Surprised she actually wanted to talk to you… she tends to just tell most bar patrons to fuck off.”

Jess snorted, shaking her head. “She did tell me to fuck off. Basically.”

Ellen snorted, shaking her head. 

Feeling much better about… everything, really, Jess grinned, and took another deep swig of her whiskey. “So…” she considered the other woman, glancing back for one moment at Jo, who had a smug little smirk on her face as she verbally ripped another patron to shreds, to the howling delight of his buddies. “I’m not going to be in town for very long, but… any odd gossip around these parts? You know… weird things happening?”

Ellen hesitated, hand over another glass that she had been about to pick up to clean, eyes flicking to Jess. “…what kind of weird things?”

Jess hesitated, looking up at her, trying to school her face into an expression of innocence. “Oh… you know… all sorts of weird things. Anything. Just… curious. You know, stories that people talk about… little rumours that are kind of ridiculous…”

The other woman rested her hip on the bar, crossing her arms over her chest. “You’re looking for a hunt, aren’t you?”

Her jaw dropped slightly. “Ah – “

“Relax,” Ellen sighed softly, picking that cup back up to start wiping again. “Yer a hunter, then. I thought you might be, when I heard whatcha said, but…” she shook her head. “If yer lookin’ for a hunt in this area, ye ain’t in much luck. Hunter bar… everything in this area has been cleaned out all ready.”

“Oh.” Jess hesitated, then looked up sharply. “Hunter bar?”

The other woman snorted, smirking slightly. “Mmhmm.”

Looking around the room, she considered the group. Men playing darts, a woman flirting with a pair playing pool, a few grizzled, middle aged men gathered around a small round table. “Are they all hunters?”

“Not all of them… but most of them. We have to gather somewhere. We may be hunters, but… we do need social connections. Friends. Conversation. People who can help us hunt, or help us find new cases. It’s not perfect, but… seeing as how hunters have a habit of drinking a lot anyway…”

Jess snorted, and drained the last of her whiskey. “Gotcha.”

“Yeah. So if yer still looking for a hunt… I might be able to find you something. But it probably won’t be in these parts.”

“I don’t care where it is,” she murmured. “Honestly. Frankly I just want to get moving.”

“…this boyfriend of yours did something stupid on a hunt, didn’t he?”

“No. that boyfriend of mine skipped town two months ago,” Jess smirked faintly, running her thumb pad around the edge of the glass. “I was hunting with another woman, though. At least… I thought I was. Pretty sure she was just using me. Somehow.”

“Why do you say that?” Ellen frowned. 

“…turned out her eyes were full on black if you know what I mean.”

“Demon?” the other hissed.

“Yeah.” Jess sighed heavily, fingernail running through another groove on the bar, where someone years ago had started to carve a pentacle and had stopped halfway through. She had a suspicion if was the woman in front of her that had caused them to stop. “Turns out my friend was a demon.”

“You didn’t check her?” Ellen demanded, leaning on the bar, looking very displeased. It made sense, really. She wouldn’t like it if some kid wandered in and said, ‘oh, by the way, hanging out with demons’.

“I didn’t know how,” she admitted. “This… this is all new. All in the last two months.”

“…something happened, didn’t it?”

She glanced up at the woman, gnawing on the inside of her cheek. Ellen made a great bartender. She was caring, almost motherly, so she was easy to talk to, but at the same time, she kept the drinks flowing. Like the mom of a teenaged kid who would “forget” the key to the liquor cabinet on party nights and wink. “Um. Yeah. There was – something happened.”

“Wanna talk about it?”

“Not really,” she flushed, embarrassed. “It’s… hard to explain. Rough. Don’t really want to talk about it, m’sorry.”

“Hey, I understand. I get it.” She nodded, understandingly. 

“Thanks,” Jess murmured, relieved. “I – yeah, thank you. Sorry. I’m… new to this world. To all of this. It’s all very new, and… if it weren’t for the fact that I feel better when I hunt, I wouldn’t do it anymore. The lifestyle kind of sucks, actually.”

Ellen snickered. “It does. I like it, though. Sometimes.”

She smiled faintly, and slid her glass closer to Ellen. “Can I…?”

“Mmhmm,” she nodded, and poured her another. 

“I liked living in one place,” Jess admitted, sipping at her glass. “Sometimes I had a moment of wanderlust, but it was usually on a warm day, or when I was hoping for vacation or something. And I would come back, I wouldn’t just… go. Place to place… I feel like Kerouac, on the road.”

“Kerouac did more drugs than you seem to be doing,” the woman drawled, shaking her head. 

“True,” she snickered.

“But… at least ye know how to check for a demon now, right?” Ellen grinned.

“…no.” Jess hesitated, and took a healthy swig of her whiskey as she tried not to look like an idiot in front of a woman with considerable more experience than her. “I have no idea how to check for demons. At all.”

“Really.” Ellen frowned, considering that, then stuck two fingers in her mouth, and whistled, loudly.

Dozens of heads snapped up around the room, checking to see what the issue was, but though everyone looked, the only one that acted was Jo – who headed over to the bar, empty tray settled on her hip as she hurried over to her mother, leaning on the bar beside Jess again. “Yeah, mom? You needed something?”

“Do me a favour. Remember that book Missouri gave me a few years ago, the Daemonology text, the one by King James? Go upstairs and get it for me.”

Jo frowned, blinking at her mother. “What for?”

“Cause I toldja to, that’s why.” Ellen arched a single brow, and pointed towards the back of the bar. “G’yon, get it.”

The younger woman sighed, and headed upstairs. 

Jess laughed softly, watching as the woman headed upstairs, considering her. “She seems kind of like she’s chomping at the bit, you ask me.”

“I didn’t,” Ellen drawled. “But you’re right.”

Snickering slightly, she knocked back another swig of the whiskey. The warm feeling had spread through her whole body now, and she was pretty sure that this had better be her last drink of the night – at least while in the bar – or she was never going to be able to stand up and walk out of here, much less making her car go anywhere. But Ellen brought her food then, and she remembered that she was at least going to have a bit of greasy food to soak up a little of the rough liquid gold, and she started eating, pleased. “She wants to break out of here, head out on her own?”

“Sort of,” the other nodded, considering that as she pulled a couple bottles of beer out of a small fridge for two men standing at the end of the bar. “She wants to hunt.”

“And you won’t let her?” she asked, balancing her burger carefully, trying not to let any of the heavy toppings leak out of the side away from her as she tried to eat. Sam would have curled his nose if he’d seen her eating this. He hadn’t been a health nut, but he always complained about how hamburgers were all he seemed to have eaten as a teenager, as a child, and that he couldn’t stand them anymore. 

“No.” she said, calmly. “I ain’t lettin’ her do that. There she is, bout time…” she muttered, and took the thick book from her daughter when the young woman handed it over, looking grumpy. “You ever heard of King James, Jess?”

“Sure, he translated the Bible, didn’t he?” she asked, leaning back to dangle one of the pickles that had managed to fall of the burger into her mouth. 

“That’s the one.” Ellen nodded, resting the book on her hip. “What’s not more commonly known about him was that he had a deep interest in what people now call ‘the occult’. He was fascinated by pagan religions and demons, but while he was interested in them, his real interest lay in the complete destructon o’ them. He wanted the demons outta his kingdom, he wanted the witches gone.”

“Wasn’t that normal at the time?” she asked, frowning slightly.

Jo leaned on the counter beside her again, quiet, just watching her mother as she explained. Jess kind of wondered if maybe this was the kind of thing that Jo wasn’t allowed to know, for fear that she would run off hunting somewhere.

“Sort of,” Ellen conceded, nodding. “It was certainly more common then than it would be now. But all the same, he kinda took it to a new level. Got obsessed, wanted to know how to kill each and everything nasty supernatural thing on the planet. Took it upon himself to create a hunting squad, to teach them everything they could possibly know, then sic ‘em on the world. Rid England of all the creepy crawlies he could manage. And when time came to pass the throne on and trust his son to take care of the nasties, he had this book written. Daemonology. This text covers everything that he managed to find in his lifetime – how to kill witches, demons, werewolves. Now, not all o’ it is right… but a lot of it is. Definitely worth a looksee.”

“Huh. I didn’t even know that you could find things like that,” Jess frowned, considering the book Ellen held in a whole new light. “Best I could find was Wikipedia, and…. Well. It’s Wikipedia.”

The woman snorted, and set the book between Jo and Jess on the counter. “It’s yours.”

“Mom!” Jo yelped, eyes wide.

“I don’t need it, already read it. Knew most o’ it anyway.” The older woman crossed her arm, and nodded at the book. “Use it. Give it a good read, and yew’ll be better prepared, next time you encounter another demon like that.”

“Wow.” Jess murmured, wiping her hands quickly with a napkin before opening the book cover slowly, peering inside. “Wow, I – I… thank you. So much.”

Ellen nodded. “Just use it well.”

“I will, thank you,” she murmured, flipping through it, food forgotten, though there was no way that Jess could miss the burning stare of Jo trying to sear holes through her with her eyes.  
   
[Part Seven](http://sparrowshellcat.dreamwidth.org/40792.html)  


\----

 

  



	7. sparrowshellcat | And Sing of Sweet Surrender - Part Seven

 

__Time to escape  
The clutches of a name  
No this is not a game   
(It’s just the beginning)

Jess hadn’t actually made it to a hotel the night before, as had been her plan.

She’d stumbled out of the Roadhouse at about three in the morning, book tucked under her arm, and with several more drinks in here than she had planned on after she had mentally cut herself off. Feeling warm and happy and pleasantly numbed, she had stumbled to her stolen car, dropped herself in the front seat, and planned thoroughly to find somewhere to sleep. Sleep, she had figured, was very important to have, because around one, Ellen had actually given her a job. Handed her a newspaper article she’d printed off the internet, explained what the weird weather patterns and animal deaths they were talking about probably meant, and suggested that it might be a good way to test her knowledge. 

Ellen had suggested that Jess bring back up, but at the moment, as raw as she was feeling over the whole Meg betrayal, she hadn’t really wanted to find back up in that bar full of drunk hunters.

So she’d gone to her car, planned to find someplace to sleep, and when she woke some five hours later, it was to her face smushed against the lines in the front bench seat. She had fallen asleep in the car, just sort of toppled sideways like a redwood, and passed out with her face crunched unattractively against the cheap vinyl. 

“Nnngh,” Jess groaned, running her hand through her hair, which had apparently decided to tie itself into knots in the night and stick up in every direction, and tried to figure out what to do next.

Food was clearly the first order of business. No, a bathroom was the first order. Food could come second.

Connecting the exposed wires in the steering column, Jess pulled out of the gravel parking lot, flicking the visor down so that the early morning sunlight didn’t shine directly in her hung over eyes. 

It took her half an hour to find a café on the dusty, quiet roads, and took the book inside with her when she headed into the place. Between the heavy weight of the book resting on her hip, the heavy warmth of the gun at her lower back, and the heavy knife under her pants leg, she felt better. A lot better. Like she was safe.

It wasn’t until she had used their washroom, eaten her breakfast, struggled through a chapter of the book (which was written in Olde English – readable, but only if you really devoted a lot of time, effort, and remembered that what looked like a funky ‘s’ was actually an ‘f’), and headed out onto the road for about an hour that Jess realized that something was very wrong. She’d felt odd for the last half hour of her trip, or so, as if someone was watching her, looking for her weaknesses and her vulnerabilities, and it was really starting to freak her out. 

On one of those long stretches of empty highway that the prairies were famous for, Jess tried to find out what was bothering her. Which included, among checking other things, glancing over the back of the bench seat into the back seat.

Which was when she howled in shock, and jerked the car off the road, nearly sending it into a ditch.

“What the hell?!” she roared, spinning to face the back seat, jerking her gun out of her jeans.

“What is wrong with you?!” Jo bellowed back, hands up. “Shit! Learn to drive!”

“You’re in my fucking back seat!” she yelled, gun still pointing at the other’s forehead. “What the hell are you doing in my fucking back seat?!”

“I was sleeping!” she hollered.

“Why were you there not what were you literally fucking doing?! I don’t care what you were literally fucking doing, I wanted to know what the fuck you were doing in my goddamn back seat!”

“It’s not your damn car anyway, you fucking stole it!”

“Possession is nine tenths of the law, now tell me what the hell you are doing before I start fucking shooting!”

Jo bolted forward at that, small fingers wrapping around the barrel of the gun as she tried to force it out of Jess’ hands. Of course, Jess had no such plans for allowing her to do that, so she struggled back just as hard, until with a sharp retort, the gun went off, blowing a whole straight through the rust bucket of a car’s roof.

Both women recoiled in pain, and Jess curled her hands over her ears, trying to make the ringing – and the dizzy reeling feeling that accompanied it – stop. “For fuck’s sake!”

“Goddamn it,” Jo groaned, not that either could actually hear what the other was saying over the ringing. 

Jess waited until the whole world stopped showing up in reeling, spinning doubles, then pointed the gun back at Jo. “All right, this time, I will actually fucking shoot you. What the hell are you doing here?”

“Don’t shoot me,” she groaned, wincing when she spoke. “I just wanted to help you.”

“Help me.”

“Yeah… you have that demon job in Boise… I was just gonna come help.”

“Your mother says she doesn’t want you hunting,” Jess considered her, narrowing her eyes.

“Yeah, and she’s somehow managed to forget that I am not only legal, but trained to fucking hunt.” Jo glowered right back at her. “My decision to make, now, not hers. So are you gonna let me come as your backup, or do I have to find my own way out of here?”

Jess watched her with a level gaze for a moment, then said, “Christo.”

“Well, nice to see you’re at least reading the lore.” She sighed, rolling her eyes. “I’m not a demon. I’m just a really pissed off woman with a headache and the desire to rain terror down on some unnatural supernatural sons of bitches.”

“…all right.” Jess flicked the safety back onto her gun, then shifted to tuck it back into her belt.

“…you seriously keep your gun in your ass?” Jo blinked at her. “You know how dangerous that is?”

“Do I look like I care?” she grunted.

“No, not really, but if you like your ass being, you know, not accidentally shot off, I’d recommend invest in a good holster.”

“And where do you carry yours?” she arched a single brow.

“I use rifles,” Jo drawled, as though that was the most obvious thing in the world. “Now that you actually know that I’m here, can I come sit in the front? The back is really small, my legs are completely locked up.”

“Yeah,” Jess nodded, and made sure the car was actually running properly. She’d kind of tossed the emergency brake on when they’d pulled over, instead of taking it out of drive, and there was the distinct scent of burnt rubber and scorched oil in the air now.

“You killed the car,” Jo informed her as she slid into the front passenger seat.

“I noticed. But as you said, it’s not my car,” she shifted the e-brake off, and headed back onto the dusty road, carefully. “You ain’t morally objecting to the idea of me picking up another one in the next town we come to, are you?”

“Hell no,” Jo drawled, considering her nails. She didn’t seem the type of girl to care about things like broken or dirty nails, to Jess, so she figured the other was mostly just trying – and failing – to act nonchalant. “In fact, I’ll help you find something better. Break in instead of just having to leave the doors open all the time… way too easy for random people to just slide into your back seat.”

“I’ll have to remember that,” she growled. 

“…you’re not going to grump at me the whole way, are you?” Jo glanced over at her, frowning as she shifted so that her knees were resting against the dashboard. “Because we do have to work together on this. Watch each other’s back.”

“Did you not hear me tell your mother what happened to the last person I hunted with?” Jess asked, frowning.

“No.” she hesitated. “You didn’t kill him, did you?”

“She turned out to be a demon. Had been a demon the whole time.”

“Shit.” Jo blinked. “….no wonder you’re looking for ways to recognize demons. You’ve had to actually face it. She do anything to you?”

A few thoughts flitted through Jess’ head – Meg thwapping her with a pillow, Meg offering her alcohol, Meg pressed into her back as she taught her to shoot, the spark in Meg’s eyes as she sent Jess into the throes of ecstasy, Meg refusing to kiss her, the black eyes as Meg slammed her back against the wall. “…nothing major.” She said, instead. “I was lucky. Happened to be exorcising someone else at the time. Exposed her.”

“Shit.” She said again, leaning back and staring up at the ceiling for a moment. “Damn.”

“Yeah.” She sighed, shifting slightly in her seat. “….so what are you doing here, anyway? Why’d you camp out in my car and decide to escape home by coming with me?”

“Because you looked like you could need the help of a hunter who actually knew what they were doing.”

Jess snorted, glancing over at her. “Bullshit.”

Jo smirked slightly, stretching. “And you weren’t a middle aged, dirty, drunk-ass pervert man.”

She hesitated. “True.”

It was a little eerie having her own thoughts echoed by her trespasser. “Right. So… you know more about demons and shit than I do, right? Strange animal deaths and weird weather patterns – those really signs of demons?”

“Not always,” Jo frowned slightly, considering that. “But electrical storms and widespread cow death with no reason? Definitely.”

“Damn.” She frowned. “So we need to know more about demons, I guess.”

“Yeah,” she nodded, glancing at her. “…want me to read to you out of the book?”

“You can read old English?”

“Not exactly,” Jo considered that. “I’m not really an old English kinda person. But I can figure it out enough to figure out what’s going on.”

“All right then. Read on,” Jess nodded.

\----

 

__Compared to some I've been around  
But I really tried so hard  
That echo chorus lied to me with its  
"Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on"

“Remind me to never steal another bucket of shit just because I think no one will notice if I do,” Jess muttered, stepping into the little motel room, wanting to wring out her hair. It frizzed and curled when it got wet like this. 

“Agreed,” Jo muttered, dropping their bags on the floor just inside the door, then hesitated. “Woah. Underwater themed hotel?”

“Weird,” she muttered, finally wringing out her hair. 

It had started storming about three hours after Jo had started reading to her, about an hour before they finally got to Boise. Though they didn’t think anything about it at the time, it took about five minutes before they realized that water was starting to pour in through the bullet hole in the ceiling, and they scrambled to move their bags – with all the weapons and ammunition away from the hole. For the next hour, they had the rain actually rain down on them through the ceiling, and by the time they got to the little motel they’d finally gotten a room in, they were soaked to the bone.

“A little ironic,” Jo smirked, and flicked the light on, laughing. “It’s a mermaid’s belly button.”

She snickered, and shed her soaked jacket, looking around. It was an almost terrifying place, but in a cool way. The light was blueish tinted, shining through a warped glass shade, and there were corals and shells everywhere. Pressing her hand down on the bed, Jess glanced at Meg. “I can’t believe we actually managed to get this room as cheap as we did. They’re water beds.”

“Water beds?” the other darted over, and threw herself down on one, giggling maniacally. “This is awesome! I’ve never been on a water bed before!”

Jess smirked down at her. “You like, huh?”

“Heh… it’s fun. Feel like I’m on a boat.” Jo grinned, the mattress bobbing softly under her.

“You know those things are murder on your back, right?” she smirked, bending over to press down on the bed, over and over, making the whole bed rock under Jo, who cackled in glee as she did.

“It’s just one night, I don’t care!” she laughed.

Snickering, Jess shook her head, and headed to the bathroom to check out the facilities, then called, “So the book said we should ward every place we plan to sleep – does that include hotel rooms?”

“Yeah,” Jo rolled off the bed, following her to peer in the bathroom. “Nice tub.”

“Mmmhmm,” she nodded, and headed to dig in her bag. “Salt, right?”

“Salt.” She agreed. 

Tugging out one of the several cardboard boxes she’d gotten of pickling salt – it was slightly cheaper than kosher salt, and there had been no table salt at the convenience store she’d picked it up from – she shook the box, nose crinkling. “Our bags did get wet. It sounds kinda chunky.”

“Hell, so long as it's still salt and we can pour it out a little, then we’re good,” she shrugged.

“Good,” Jess nodded, and crouched behind the locked front door to carefully pour it out. It was chunky, with little hard nuggets of salt in it, but she was able to spread it in a fairly neat unbroken line. She did the windows next, then shoved what little was left in her bag. “So what now?”

“That’s enough,” Jo shrugged. She was sitting on one of the two beds, back against the coral encrusted headboard, the Daemonology text resting on her knees. “Wanna work on the book again?”

“I guess. I was gonna do some research on what exactly we’re hunting this time, but…” 

“Demons,” she answered, tossing her wet hair over her shoulder, flicking through the pages of the book. They had wrapped it up in a plastic bag once the water started to pour in the ceiling, so it was fortunately still in perfect condition. “At least one, possibly more. What I’d look into is odd things that people are doing. That’ll tell us what we’re looking at. I could still read to you while you look…?”

“Sure, why not?” she sighed, tugging her laptop out of the plastic bag they’d wrapped it in, and settled at the little table at the end of the beds, booting it up.

Two hours later, they had figured out a connection between three recent murders – a massage parlour in a little business area, where one of the employees and two of the customers had been last seen before they disappeared – and had made it through another two chapters of the book. Jess shoved her computer away, yawning, and grumbled, “My eyes are going all blurry funny.”

“Heh. Yeah? Me too. The print in this book is tiny.”

“Mmm, yeah.” She rose, and headed to the other bed, flicking off the mermaid’s belly button as she went, so the only light was from the small lamp on the table between the beds – the shade a taxidermied puffer fish. It was fucking creepy, but kind of impressive. In a completely creepy way.

“Bed time, heh?” Jo smirked, closing the book and setting it with reverence on the table.

“Yeah,” she yawned, cracking her jaw, considering the other woman. “You cool sleeping in the same room and everything?”

“Mmm? Yeah, s’okay.” She shrugged.

Jess considered her for a moment, then shrugged, and slid under the blankets before struggling out of her jeans under the blanket, tossing them towards the end of the bed once she had flopped back into the pillows. “All right, well… g’night, then.”

“Yeah.” Jo nodded, watching her for a moment, then murmured, “Thanks for lettin’ me come, Jess.”

She smiled crookedly at her. “We should all have the choice to run off once in our lives.”

“Yeah,” she said again, smiling softly.

“So tomorrow morning… we head out to a massage parlour,” she yawned again, smirking slightly.

“We going as clients, or applying to fill the missing girl’s job?” Jo grinned.

“You go to work,” she murmured, already starting to fall into sleep. “I look more like the type that would go to a massage parlour, I suppose,” she murmured sleepily, eyes falling shut.

“Naw, you ain’t a skeezy pervert.”

Jess snorted.

\----

 

_ Imagine there’s no heaven  
It isn’t hard if you try _

Jess had once described Hell as a cave. That was not entirely accurate.

Hell was a pit.

A gaping hungry hollow at the centre of all that is, ever was, or ever will be, like a cavity in the core of all existence. Hell was a maw like emptiness at the root of everything. The words needed to explain the depth of the darkness there have not yet been written. Hell was not just an absence of light. It was the darkness that existed to crush the light.

The rumours of Hell being a place of fire were greatly exaggerated. Fire would have given those in Hell light.

There was no light in Hell.

Cold metal pressing against her back, Jess was not quite lying down, and not quite standing up, but at an angle somewhere in between, held in place by metal straps as burning cold as the table at her back was, and chains that dug too deep into her skin, leaving her fingers and toes cold and tingling. The taste of metal and the iron of blood seemed seared into her tongue, and it was only when she squeezed her eyes tightly enough to make nerves spark that there was light.

But she could see.

Jess knew the biophysics of this, intellectually. She knew that without light, the human eye cannot see. But she could. She could see the twisted demon that leaned over her as he stripped the skin from her flesh.

She screamed sometimes. When there wasn’t a metal bit in her mouth gagging her, she sometimes let the anxious monster in her gut burst from her lungs like she was wailing for the death of the earth itself, but usually she just chewed at her tongue until it bled, instead. Twice she’d actually bitten her tongue in half. 

He liked it when she screamed.

“Livers are interesting,” he was saying, as he cut through her last layer of flesh, opening her stomach cavity. “They always come back exactly as they were when the person died. You can see every section destroyed by alcohol, disease. Healthy ones come out nice and purple.”

Jess arched as he dug about in her innards, biting down on her tongue. Blood flooded down her throat, and she briefly wished she could drown in it, though that would be, of course, redundant.

There was a soft, sickening squelch, and he held her liver up for her to see, still dripping. “You see? Smooth and purple. A nice healthy liver.”

She gagged on her own blood.

He chuckled, and said cheerfully, “What, you find the sight of your own liver distasteful? You, my dear, have only seen it for a few weeks. Trying being strapped to a rock for two thousand years with a giant eagle eating it every day, and then we’ll talk.”

“Fuck you,” she croaked through the blood, words slurred. Guess she’d already bitten off a good chunk of her tongue today.

“All in good time, my dear. Now,” he licked his lips, almost obscene. “Let’s crack that rib cage open and take a look, shall we?”

She spit, blood splattering on his face.

He didn’t react, except to snap her sternum with a quick sharp jerk, splaying her rib cage open.

Jess screamed then, a gut wrenching howl of pain.

One thing that must be understood about Hell is that it is not a hot place, by nature, yet the very air is almost shimmering boiling from heat. This was not due to those alleged fires or from a hot climate, but rather from the sheer crushing population. Though Hell is, like heaven, theoretically infinite, it acts as though there is a constant population overload crisis, crushing so many people in such a small space that it is constantly so hot one might wish to take off their own skin to escape it.

Jess had become used to this heat, though it always seemed hotter than the moment before.

In that moment, though, she was suddenly flooded by a cool sensation, rushing over her like a wave from the sea. Her heat seared eyes opened to see light for the first time since she’d been consumed by fire, and she leaned into the cool touch on her cheek as the cool water rater in rivulets down her steaming skin.

“Wake up”, the voice, so sweet compared to the oily hissing voice of her torturer, ordered. “Wake up, Jess. Now.”

Jess’ eyes snapped open.

The blue tinted ceiling light was on, creating a cool blue glow around the golden woman crouching over her. She looked like a glowing gleaming angel of cool water. Like she was her savior.

“Jo.” She whispered, awed.

“Wake up,” she said again, firmly, and splashed water in Jess’ face again.

“I’m awake!” Jess yelped, struggling to sit up, jerked into full awakeness. “What the hell?!”

The first thing she realized when she was finally sitting up was that she was absolutely soaked. Jo had apparently opted to throw a lot of water on her until she finally woke. The second thing she noticed was that her skin was smoking. The water sizzled where it touched her, as though dropped into a hot frying pan, and steamed.

“What happened?” she demanded, confused.

“You started screaming, so I tried to wake you up.” Jo shrugged, still straddling Jess’ legs. “So when that didn’t work, I tried Holy Water. Thought it might have been an incubus, or a night hag. Or a lamia, I guess.”

“What it?” she panted, trembling, trying to forget what she had dreamed. It was impossible, because it wasn’t just a nightmare. It was also a memory.

“No,” Jo swung herself off of Jess’ lap, sitting on the edge of the water bed. “It’s like some thing you carried with you. Not a demon or anything, you’re not possessed, but it’s like… like an unholy hitchhiker, and it sort of follows you to torture you.”

A shudder ran down Jess’ spine at the other’s word choice, and she visibly winced.

They sat in silence for a moment, then Jess murmured, “So it’s just… what, nightmares?”

“Demon induced night terrors, actually, but close enough.”

She shuddered again.

“You okay, Jess?” Jo frowned, concerned.

“I – no. But I just gotta deal with that, I guess. Cause whining about it isn’t going to make anything better, is it?”

“No,” Jo admitted. “It probably won’t.”

“Of course,” she joked lamely, “Now my bed’s soaking wet, and if I just try to go back to sleep, I’m gonna dream about peeing in it, so maybe I ought to get up and try to research or something, instead.”

Jo snorted, then headed back to her own bed, tugging the blankets back. “C’mon. I’ll share.”

“…you sure?” she hesitated, mind instantly – and unwillingly – being pulled to Meg suggesting the very same arrangement. The last thing she wanted to do was mentally connect this younger but much more capable hunter to that demon that had all but tricked her into her bed. “I’m sure there’s some coffee place open this time of night…”

“After that nightmare, the last thing you need is caffeine. You need sleep. C’mon. Bed.”

She nodded, slowly, and climbed out of her own bed, shivering. The water Jo had splashed her with had pooled on the bed, but she was now completely dry, as though all of the water had evaporated off her skin and clothes. “I’m dry.”

“So grab a drink,” Jo rolled her eyes, patting the bed. “C’mon.”

“No, I mean… you soaked me with that holy water. Now I’m dry.”

Jo sat up, frowning, and shifted to the edge of the bed, reaching up to touch Jess’ stomach, considering the dry tank top. “…that is weird. That is really weird. Does that normally happen?”

“Uh. No. Never. This has never happened to me before.”

“Only with holy water?”

“I… I guess so,” she frowned, considering that, then picked up the little plastic bottle of Holy Water that the other woman had been splashing with before, and spilled some into her palm. It steamed and sizzled for a few moments, slowly evaporating. “…holy shit.”

“That may very well be one of the most disturbingly awesome things I’ve ever seen.” Jo blinked.

“….is it bad?”

“Well… that depends. Did it hurt?” she looked up at Jess with furrowed brows.

“Nope. Not at all. It just feels kinda cold.”

“…cold.”

“Mmmhmm,” she nodded, looking up to meet the other’s eyes. “Weird, I guess, cause it really looks like its boiling in my hand, doesn’t it?”

“Yeah, it really does.” Jo pondered that. “Well, I can research it, but…”

“No.” Jess said quickly, making the other’s eyes flick back to her. “I mean… don’t worry about it.”

“You sure?”

Having the other woman discover that – likely – the reason holy water boiled cold on her skin was because she had been to hell and back? Oh yeah, she was very sure. “Yeah. It doesn’t hurt, right, so what does it matter?”

“Well, it could become a bigger issue later…”

“And if it does, we’ll know.” She said quickly, flushed. “We’re good.”

“Well, if we’re good, then why the hell ain’tcha getting in bed, then?” Jo arched a single brow, and lay back down, bouncing slightly on the buoyant mattress. “Cause I’m tired and I know you are too, after that workout, so get in the damn bed.”

“Yes ma’am,” Jess drawled, crawling into the bed.

“If you’re gonna give me kinky nicknames,” the other smirked, rolling onto her side, her back to Jess as she reached, stretched to flick the mermaid lamp off. “You really ought to come up with something more creative.”

“Mistress, then, how’s that?” Jess lay on her back, closing her eyes as the room fell into darkness. The blue of the dreamed searing light still burned against the back of her lids.

“Dull. But at least it’s better than ma’am,” she snickered.

“I’ll remember that,” Jess smirked. “Sleep well, Jo.”

“Do my best,” she murmured.   
  
  
[Part Eight](http://sparrowshellcat.dreamwidth.org/41122.html)

\--   



	8. sparrowshellcat | And Sing of Sweet Surrender - Part Eight

  


  


__Strike me down, give me everything you got  
Strike me down, I’ll be everything I’m not  
Count the questions on one hand  
You don’t ask me what I’ve planned

“If you ask me for a happy ending, I swear to god I will end you.”

Jess snickered, and took her coat off, setting it on the table just inside the door, then tugged her gun out of the back of her jean, checking the bullets. “Has this been a problem for you today?”

“Let me put it this way. It’s a fucking good thing that this job is only for a hunt, or I would be getting fired from it very quickly,” Jo grumbled, digging her own gun out of her jacket, which was hanging on a coat rack in the corner. “Apparently ‘happy endings’ is part of the deal here. Which is not happening.”

“Good thing to know,” she smirked, eyes crinkling slightly in amusement. “I won’t expect, then.”

“Oh ha ha.” She rolled her eyes. “What’d you find out?”

“Well, while you were giving men their little rugs and tubs – “ Jess roared in laughter when the other woman squawked and swatted her. “ – I discovered that this isn’t the first time people have missing from here.”

“Oh yeah?” Jo perked up, forgetting her frustration.

“Yeah. Twenty five years ago, then twenty five years before that, then twenty five years before that. There’s some kind of pattern that it happens every quarter century, and every time, people go missing.”

“Huh… has it always been a massage parlour?”

“No… I mean, it was, twenty five years ago, the last time this disappearing act happened, but before that it was a ‘hotel’.” She held up her hands and did mocking ‘finger quotes’ to visibly show that she was being very sarcastic about it being a genuine hotel. “The kind of hotel that would get raided on a regular basis, and caused a huge scandal because the chief of police was found here.”

“So it was the kind of place that people could disappear from, and no one really noticed,” Jo considered that.

“Mmhmm. They assumed that they’d just run off with a mistress, or something, and no one really wanted to talk about it.”

“So, how’s the pattern work?”

“Five days, one person goes missing each day. Three we already knew about, and one more went missing yesterday, while we were travelling.”

“So we have one day.”

“One day,” Jess nodded, agreeing. “Shit. We better get out asses in gear.”

Jo snorted, and slipped past her into the hallway, motioning for Jess to follow her. They moved quietly though the building, guns tucked out of sight, looking for anything unusual. The problem was that Jess really had no idea what they were looking for, and Jo was hesitant to admit that she didn’t really know what they were looking for. As much intellectual research as she had done, demons were very much an inexact science, and it was hard to tell exactly where they were. They were both determined to find the son of a bitch before he – she? it? – managed to get another victim, but determination was a difficult thing to depend on.

“This is the room the employee who went missing was using,” Jo explained, quietly, carefully pushing one of the room doors open. “They talk about her like she’s still here.”

“Probably hoping she’ll come home soon… that sort of thing happens,” Jess murmured, leaning over the other’s shoulder to peer into the room. It looked almost exactly the same as the one she and Jo had just come out of, and nothing looked out of place. There was no flashing neon sign saying ‘this is why a demon took this person’ or anything nearly that convenient. “Damn. This might be harder than I expected.”

“What do you do on your hunts, normally?” the other peered up at her, curiously.

She hesitated. “….go where the thing is and kill it?”

“…that’s it?”

Jess hesitated, then admitted, slowly, “Usually I get drunk first?”

Jo huffed, hair ruffling as she let out a heavy sigh, turning to face the taller woman. “You are completely serious, aren’t you?”

She shrugged with one shoulder. “Easier to deal with things if you’re wasted.”

“And you don’t find it, I dunno, affects your aim, maybe?” she hissed, throwing her hands up in the air.

“….I learned to shoot while wasted. I find it doesn’t really make much of a difference. Honestly.”

The other groaned, slumping against the doorframe. 

“What? It’s – it’s my coping mechanism! Or… something.” She flushed. She was having enough problems feeling guilty about this whole thing. This was only making it worse. “It’s how I do, okay, you asked.”

Jo opened a single eye, glowering at her for a moment, then grabbed Jess’ elbow, dragging her back to the room they’d exited only minutes before. “C’mon.”

“Where are we going?” she asked, frowning slightly. “And why?”

“Because there’s a mini fridge. Probably for the massagers to get themselves loopy enough that they don’t complain about the little old fat men asking for their fucking happy endings.” She tugged the other woman back as they waited for a client to round a corner, talking brightly to another man, then darted into the room, pulling Jess with her.

“I think they’re called masseurs. Or something.”

“Whatever,” she rolled her eyes, and dug in a small fridge that Jess hadn’t even noticed before, pulling out a large bottle of wine, already corked. “Drink up.”

“….I’m not much of a wine person…” she said slowly, considering the bottle.

“You want to get drunk or not?” Jo demanded, jaw set tightly. It was the expression of someone who had been through all of this shit before, thought she’d finally moved beyond it, then found herself right back in it again. She didn’t look impressed. Not a bit. But she was still standing there, holding out the bottle, waiting. It might be with long suffering disappointment, but it was still understanding.

Jess sighed softly, and took the bottle, pulling the cork out of the top, and taking a swig. 

“So,” the other woman frowned as Jess drank, trying to get herself drunk as quickly as possible. Even when facing that demon the other day, she’d been tipsy. She had made sure not to drink so much as to slur her words – a drunk exorcism was probably not a new art form that she wanted to learn – but she had gotten drunk enough to feel it. “We need a plan, then. I think we should follow the route that an average employee might take. Because it’s not as though these people were wandering around in unused sections or doing rituals or anything, right? They just did their normal thing.”

“Good point,” she considered that, running her tongue over the front of her teeth, considering the taste of the wine. It had a sharp bite to it, but it had a rich, deep flavor. Cranberry, maybe? There was no label to check. “Does that mean you have to give me a massage?”

“I think it’d be enough if you just sit on the bench, or something, I doubt we really need to go that far,” Jo muttered, slightly flushed, and patted the towel covered table. “Sit.”

Jess nodded, and hopped up onto it, crossing her legs as she took another deep swig of the wine. “You don’t think it could have been something added to the massage oils, or something?”

The other’s eyes widened sharply. “I hope not! I used those!”

She hesitated. “Do you feel like you’re about to disappear?”

“Well, obviously not, don’t be a dork,” she snorted, shaking her head as she leaned on the table beside Jess’ legs, trying to think of other places where the contamination might have been introduced. If it even was a contamination – maybe it was a little man who came in with panpipes and lured them away. Who knew? “Shit, this is harder than I thought it was going to be.”

“Well, at least we have good wine,” Jess smirked. Her insides felt warm. Boiling warm.

“Sure, that’s a start,” the other sighed, trying to think.

Jess stretched, the vertebrae of her back cracking, not even noticing when Jo winced slightly, glancing over at her. “Mmm… very good wine.”

“Great,” Jo murmured.

“Want some?” she offered the bottle, eyes falling half lidded. She felt sort of warm and buzzy, like she was wrapped in a very comfy blanket of bees. It made absolutely no sense, and on some level of her consciousness she knew that, but her trembling skin didn’t seem to register her own thoughts. It was focused on the air, the wine, the warmth.

The soft voice calling to her.

“No, thanks. I don’t really drink wine when I’m on a job.”

Slipping off the table, not even paying attention to what Jo had said, Jess padded to the door, opening the door, and walking woodenly out into the hall, quietly, sneakers shuffling softly on the tile floor as she walked. Jo darted after her, calling her name, voice getting more alarmed each time she said it with no response, but Jess wasn’t thinking of her companion. Her attention was focused on the soft, whispering voice just at the edges of her consciousness.

Her eyes actually fell shut as she walked, just wanting to wrap herself up in that sweet, seductive drawl, a voice that called her closer, softly, almost lovingly. It was all the affection she’d been missing since Sam left, all the affection she’d foolishly thought she’d found in Meg.

“I’m coming,” she whispered, eagerly, following that guiding voice, eagerly. “Wait for me…”

Vaguely, she could feel Jo’s fingers on her arm, trying to pull her back, trying to stop her progress, trying to distract her from that beautiful voice. But though the other woman was no weakling, the force of the whispering voice in her ear, the voice that promised all sorts of wonderful things, was far stronger than Jo’s straining muscles. It was as though she had been given wings by the wonderful promises that the voice offered, the delicious dark treats and pleasures it murmured about. It was so tempting, so wonderful, so perfect…

Jess stopped dead.

The voice was still whispering in her ears, calling her closer, beckoning her forward. Her skin still buzzed, her guts still felt warm and trembling. Everything was the same, but she was not moving forward anymore.

Slowly, her eyelids fluttered open, and she blinked at Jo’s face, which was frighteningly close to her own.

And then realized that not only was Jo kissing her, with a kind of furious passion that made the dark temptations still whispered in her ears pale in comparison, but Jess herself was clutching at Jo’s arms, trying to tug her closer.

She gasped, and bolted back from her, gaping at the other woman. “What the hell was that?!”

“Oh thank god,” Jo groaned, wiping at her swollen, kissed red lips with the back of her hand, panting. There was a desperate fevered look in her eyes, and bruises on her upper arms, already, from Jess’ pressing fingers. “I dunno what I would have done if that hadn’t worked.”

“You kissed me!” she accused, pointing at her with a trembling finger.

“Yeah, and a good thing I did, too, cause it worked.” Jo glanced behind her, frowning. “You were about to wander into the furnace, Jess, I wasn’t exactly about to let that happen.”

“I was what?!” she started, coming back to herself.

Sure enough, they were standing in the basement of the building, and the door of the massive, industrial furnace was just a few feet away. She wondered for a moment why in the world a place like this would have a massive wood burning furnace, then remembered that the building itself had been built sometime a couple centuries ago. Wood would have been it, unless it was a coal furnace, and clearly a new one had never been retrofitted. For good reason, if something was luring five people into it every twenty five years. “Shit!”

“I know.” Jo panted, considering her. “You were talking about how you were coming, how you loved… this voice you were hearing, or something, how you were coming to them. I figured if this thing was getting to you through telling you that it loved you…” she shrugged. “It seemed to work, at least. If nothing else.”

“You still kissed me,” Jess muttered, flushed, touching her lips.

“Hey, it worked, didn’t it? Or would you rather be burning alive right now?”

Jess glanced at the door of the furnace, and sucked in a sharp breath, eyes opened wide. Pinned to the ceiling. Sliced across, blood pooling in the folds of her nightgown. The look of anguish on Sam’s face as he reached towards her, desperately…

“No!” she howled, making Jo jump.

“Sheesh, no need to shout at me, I’m right fucking here…” she muttered, flushed, and looked around. “Do you see what it was you were trying to get to? I mean, other than the furnace. We need to kill whatever it was.”

Jess took a few steadying breaths, trying to make her heart stop pounding, then looked around. “No.”

“What was it? A regular demon, or…?”

“I have no idea,” Jess murmured, then nodded at the furnace. “It says something above the door. What is it?”

“Huh, let’s see…” Jo stood on her tiptoes to read.

And yeah, Jess was not too proud to admit – to herself, at least, she’d never admit it to anyone else – that she checked the other woman out while her attention was elsewhere. Sue her, that kiss had been fucking brilliant, even if she hadn’t asked for it. And at least, unlike Meg, Jo seemed to have no problem with a meeting of lips.

“ _Neu pranse Lamiae vivum puerum extrabat alvo_.” Jo said, finally.

“…what does that mean?” she frowned, wracking her brain. “It sounds familiar… Alexander Pope!”

“Who now?” the other woman blinked at her.

“Alexander Pope! I did an entire seminar on him at school… the guy was a poet, but what he was really famous for wasn’t his own writing, but for the fact that he translated Homer’s works. You know, the Iliad, the Odyssey.” 

“Oh!” she perked up. “Yeah, I’ve read those… wait. This line is from those? And you remember that?”

“My professor was obsessed with the stories about the monsters. How did this one go… something like… will the Lamia devour our sons, and give them back alive? It was something like that. Basically, it was this entire piece in the original book about the Lamia – witch women with snake bodies instead of legs – who ate babies because the first Lamia’s own babies were murdered by Hera.”

“I know what a Lamia is, remember, I thought that might have been what was crawling around in our bedroom last night,” Jo glanced up at the words above the door. “They’re also creatures of lust. Seduce people, then eat their eyes.”

She shuddered. “Why their eyes?”

“Because the eyes contain the soul, or so the story goes.” She glanced back at Jess. “Plus Lamia had this thing where she could take out her own eyes because she was a seer. Zeus did it so that she would feel better about her babies being murdered, but it actually just made her sort of more angry, because she could take her eyes out now. Gruesome.”

“Very,” she muttered. “So is she here?”

“Oh, I doubt it’s Lamia herself… honestly, I don’t think there’s a lamia here at all,” Jo murmured. “I think it’s a… conduit. Some kind of link, between a lamia that used to be here, and this furnace.” She motioned at the door. “I mean, look at that! It’s calling people into it!”

“I don’t think it is,” Jess murmured. “I didn’t feel like it was calling me into a furnace.”

“But that’s where you were headed, smart girl,” Jo patted her shoulder. 

“Yeah…” she murmured, still not convinced. 

“Why, do you still hear the voice? Does it still want you to come?”

Jess considered that, frowning. “I can still hear it, yeah. But it’s… far away. Like it’s not really here. Like it’s getting further away the longer we stand here.”

“Well, what’d you do that I didn’t? That might tell us what – the wine.”

Meeting the other woman’s eyes, Jess hissed, “The wine!”

“It was drugged or something, and lured you down… damn.” Jo shook her head, quickly. “Well, first things first, we’re going to have to get rid of that, before – “

And then she froze.

Though ‘froze’ wasn’t exactly the right word for it. Freezing would imply that she simply stopped moving. Jo did not simply stop moving.

Jo went abruptly stock still, not even breathing, her expression trapped in one of concern and consternation, one hand held up as she listed what exactly the plan had to be, the other resting on her hip, her thumb tucked into her jeans pocket as though it was the most natural thing in the world. But her skin, her hair, her clothes, her bright brown eyes, all seemed to have a soft grey-white sheen, a pallor of beyond the grave.

Gaping, Jess stepped closer to the other woman, reaching up to gently touch her raised hand, fingers curling in the other’s palm as she touched her skin, shocked. Instead of skin, she was touching smooth, cool stone.

“What the hell?!”

There was a soft whispering sound behind her, and Jess spun, putting herself between the sound and the abruptly formed statue of her friend, even though Jo was probably the least likely of the two of them to be injured by whatever was making the sound.

Jerking her gun out of her waistband with an unsteady hand, Jess found herself moving the barrel up and up to try and keep it level with the thickest part of the mass that was moving in the shadows.

In the flickering light from the furnace, the most unusual sight shifted into her view. A woman – a gorgeous, breathtaking, mind-blowingly attractive woman – shifted towards her, with long sleek hair, reddish brown and loosely curled in natural ringlets, tumbling long around her waist, barely covering her naked, sun freckled torso. She smiled, sweetly, at Jess. She had deep amber eyes, bright despite the shadows, and reached forward with long, delicate fingers towards her. But her sweetly curved hips did not slip down to long legs, but instead a tail, scaled, as thick as her hips themselves, tapering off into the darkness.

“Jess, my darling,” the woman said, in that beautifully tempting voice that had almost lured her here before. “Come to me.”

She took a step forward, despite herself, then bolted back, pressing into Jo’s stone arm. “What did you do to her?”

“Nothing,” she purred, slithering closer, fingers reaching up to cup Jess’ jaw. She wanted to shy away from the soft, teasing touch, wanted to get away from her, but every nerve in her body seemed to disagree with her, and struggled to get towards the massive beast instead. “She was stopping you from getting to me, darling, so I merely had to make her still.”

“You turned her to stone!”

“Yes… but she is so still now, my love, isn’t she?”

Jess shuddered, trying to back away from the giant snake woman.

The lamia tugged her closer, coils of her massive tail sliding slowly around her. The soft scales brushed across her skin like a soft, dry lover’s touch, but it made her skin crawl. She had never had a problem with snakes before, not even when Jimmy Lawson had tried to terrify her with one in third grade (she’d turned the tables on him by whipping a frog at his head, and to this day, he claimed to be terrified of green amphibians) but she’d also never had one attempt to seduce her before. The worst part was that as mentally and psychologically damaging as this was to her mind, her body didn’t seem to agree, and seemed to think that curling closer to a Lamia and resting her head on the demon monster’s breast was a perfectly acceptable thing to do.

“What are you going to do to us?” she whispered, voice cracking, trembling.

“Love you, my dear,” she murmured, fingers running up and down Jess’ spine, teasing. “And eat you, of course. But I promise you will enjoy that.”

She tried to shudder. She really did. She tried not to shiver with anticipation, but that was exactly what her traitorous body did to her. “And Jo? What will you do to Jo?”

“Nothing.”

“You’ll leave her like that?”

“Of course. Perhaps someone will find her. Perhaps not,” the lamia stroked the back of Jess’ neck. “That is no concern of mine, and soon it will be no concern of yours. Now my sweet, I shall love you. It makes the flesh taste so much sweeter.”

“No,” she gasped, struggling against her own body.

“Yes,” the lamia promised, and bent her beautifully anachronistic body to kiss her, pleased.

The funny thing was, Jess thought, as the demon tried to pull her body – entirely at the lamia’s mercy – closer into her, was that it just wasn’t as good as her last kiss, even though it was by a lust fueled sex demon that was sure to be more than practiced at this, and not a young woman scared that there were no other options.

Which was the kernel of control that let her pull the trigger.

The lamia screamed, reeling back, hands curled over her stomach, which was now bleeding profusely from an impressive bullet wound in her belly – apparently pressing the barrel directly into the skin was going to result in massive wounds, even if the gun was only loaded with standard ammunition. “Let her go!” she screamed.

“Never!” the lamia howled, and suddenly that gorgeous face wasn’t quite so gorgeous, but sort of twisted and evil, like there was a dark shadow that had just passed over her features.

Jess fired again and again, even though she was pretty sure that shooting wasn’t really most mythical – well, she’d thought the bitch was mythical, until she saw her up close and personal – Greek monsters, but then, guns hadn’t exactly been invented during the Classical age, maybe it was exactly the sort of thing needed to kill them?

It certainly seemed to be working now. The lamia was screaming every time she hit, and when she ran out of ammo, she just reeled back, hissing furiously. Bending to jerk her pant leg up and slide her hunting knife out of its sheath, Jess was slammed by a massive length of tail, and reeled back onto the floor, gasping in pain. She froze when the lamia shifted closer, bleeding profusely, holding the tip of her tail over Jess. Instead of a standard smooth tip, or even a rattle, the lamia’s tail seemed to end in a scorpion’s sting, which weaved back and forth over her in a sort of hypnotic pattern.

“I will trap you in stone for an eternity,” the lamia rasped, slithering closer. She looked haggard now, beaten. “You will see, and feel, and suffer. And when someone finally crushes your statue, maybe to loot the beautiful head, you will feel every moment. And you will suffer.”

Jess swallowed, and bolted up, slashing the scorpion point off the tail with her hunting knife.

The lamia screamed in absolute agony, reeling back from her as she shrieked her pain, her agony, clawing uselessly at the sky as Jess scooped up the fallen piece of the monstrous woman, careful not to get stung.

Oh god, I hope this works.

Clutching the stinger, Jess bolted up, and rammed it deep into one of the bullet wounds on the lamia’s skin.

She shrieked, eyes rolling back in her head, mouth starting to froth and she convulsed.

Scrambling away from the thrashing tail, Jess gripped the arm of the Jo statue, dragging her away from the line of danger. She wasn’t sure if the lamia had been lying when she described what it was like to be in stone or not, but god, if she was right…

Face and body swelling from the poison running through her veins, the lamia slowly toppled, like a felled tree, to the floor, twitching in death throes.

Whimpering in relief, Jess watched until she fell completely still, then finally slumped into the statue of Jo’s arms, pressing her forehead into the other woman’s, cold, carved stone pressed against her skin. “Wake up, Jo,” she whispered. “Please. Please.”

The statue didn’t move.

Shaking, Jess begged, “Please. Your mother would kill me… I don’t want you to be dead… wake up… please…”

The lamia began to shrivel, black smoke filling the room around her as the snake skin started to curl in on itself, the edges blackening as it started to burn, the black smoke sinking into the floor. Jess didn’t notice. She was crying softly, and pressed her lips to the cold stone ones in front of her, hopeful. It had worked before, in reverse. “Wake up, Jo, please…”

“We have got to stop doing this,” the lips under hers moved softly, and Jess bolted up, eyes wide.

Jo looked exactly as she had the moment she’d stopped, but when Jess’ panicked eyes met hers, she smirked faintly, and murmured, “That was the weirdest thing I have ever experienced. Ever. Promise me you will never tell my mother that I got turned into a statue while hunting. Ever.”

Jess laughed, weakly, hugging her tightly. 

“You have to promise! I’m serious!” Jo insisted, as she hugged her back. “My mother would skin us both!”

\----

  
  
 

__I'm going down  
To the devil's water   
I'm gonna drown   
In that troubled water   
It's coming 'round my soul   
It's way beyond control

“Are you sure you need to do this?” 

Jo glanced up from the burning incense in the little ashtray that had been sitting on the dresser of their new hotel room, frowning slightly. “Maybe not, but I’d rather play it safe than be sorry, later.”

“But really, a purification ritual?” Jess sat down across from her, folding her legs under her. “I mean, you were turned to stone, you didn’t stab a priest.”

“If I stabbed a priest, we’d have a much bigger problem than needing a purification ritual,” Jo rolled her eyes, and handed the massive Daemonology book to the other woman, a red ribbon tucked in it to mark the page. “Look, it’s probably stupid and pointless, but I was turned into a statue for several minutes because a demon thought it’d be a perfectly dandy idea to stab me with her tail. I’d rather just make sure I haven’t got bits of the demon floating around in me.”

“Christo,” Jess offered, curiously.

“I’m not possessed,” she sighed. “Just… freaked out.”

“So this is much less about the actual purification, and much more about the fact that doing a purification will make you feel better,” she nodded, suddenly understanding.

“Yeah,” Jo shrugged, flushed. “That, and the fact that if my mother ever did find out that I did the Medusa thing for a few minutes, she might freak out a little tiny bit less if she knew that I did a cleansing ritual afterwards, so there is no chance that anything nasty stuck to me.”

“Good point,” Jess shuddered slightly. She was slightly terrified of Ellen herself.

“Okay.” Shifting the ingredients carefully, making sure that everything was there, Jo looked up at Jess, gnawing at her lip. “You ready?”

“I’m ready,” she nodded, but hesitated. “You’re completely sure we’re doing the right one?”

“You gonna back out on me?” the younger woman crossed her arms over her chest, stubbornly.

“No… not gonna back out.” She shook her head, and stood, setting the heavy book on the counter so that it was easily accessible, but mostly out of the way. “I’m ready.”

“Okay. Thanks.”

Jess bent to scoop up the little glass bowl they’d made on the stove before. She’d watched as the other woman worked, brows furrowed in deep concentration, almost amusingly serious as she’d boiled the pot of creek water with plants floating in it – chamomile, peppermint, lavender, red clover leaves. Even now the remains of the leaves floated in the bottom of the bowl, like a softly reddish green bowl of tea, cold. 

Jo scrambled up as well, biting her lip as she watched her. “Okay. Lead. I’ll follow.”

Nodding, she headed to the nearest corner, dipping her fingers in the water in the bowl, and sprinkling it lightly on the carpet. The book had said to do this “widdershins”, which had stumped them until they looked it up on Wikipedia – widdershins apparently meant counter clockwise. 

Once she had sprinkled every corner, every windowsill, and every doorway, Jo following her the whole way with an intently serious expression, Jess stepped outside the hotel. 

They were lucky in their choice of accommodations this time – the little cottage style motel they had found was perfect for this particular ritual as outlined in their text, as apparently they needed to do the same as inside out as well, and Jess could only imagine how much it would have sucked to try and walk around an entire motel just to sprinkle the windowsills of the room they were staying it. Still, she was relieved when she was able to duck back inside the little cabin, locking the door.

“Now the fun part,” Jo muttered, somewhat sarcastically, as she tugged her shirt over her head.

Jess squeaked slightly. “What are you doing?”

“Getting naked.” The other looked up at her, surprised at Jess’ shocked expression. “Don’t tell me you’ve never seen another woman naked before.”

The thought of Meg climbing into the shower flitted unbidden through her mind. “Of course I have. But why are you getting naked now?!”

“Because the spell book says I need to be skyclad.”

“….that you need to be what now?”

“Skyclad. Clad in the sky.” Jo rolled her eyes. “And here I thought you were the one with all the fancy education and all that.”

“I am aware of what the word means. I’m just still in shock that you’re getting naked! That we’re doing this thing naked!” She squeaked slightly again when she said the last word.

“You don’t need to be naked, just me,” she said, slightly patronizing, kicking off her underwear. “C’mon. Next step.”

Clearing her throat several times, Jess closed her eyes for a moment, then took a deep, steadying breath. Stepping closer to Jo, she started dipping her fingers in the mixture again, sprinkling it on Jo, trying to keep most of the ‘brew’ on the girl and not on the tiled floor beneath them. “I’m going to start sort of pouring it on now, okay?”

Jo nodded, quickly, and Jess carefully tilted the glass bowl over the other, soaking her hair, her skin.

Soon, the younger woman stood dripping in the middle of the tile floor, shivering slightly as she hugged herself. Her hair hung wet and limp around her shoulders, and her teeth chattered just slightly as she rubbed at her upper arms. It was kind of a miserable wet rat look, but Jess was never going to forgive herself later for thinking the other woman looked positively edible that miserable.

“Okay, now the drying…” Jess grabbed the stack of washcloths they’d gathered, making sure there was still the seven they’d gathered. At the dollar store. One had Sleeping Beauty and another had Dora the Explorer, because the dollar store in question had only had five different colours of solid coloured wash clothes, but they’d done what they had to do. At least they weren’t white. Grabbing the blue one on top of the pile, she began to run it over Jo’s shoulders, trying to dry her. She was supposed to rub the whole of the other’s body with each of these, which was going to be slightly more awkward than she’d originally pictured it being. It would have already been awkward enough, clothed, but now that the other woman was standing there, skyclad and dripping and smelling like lavender and clover…

Well, let’s just say that Jess was very glad she wasn’t a man, or there would be a very awkward bulge in her jeans to try and explain.

Jo had very nice skin, Jess realized, as she ran each of the clothes over her, one by one. Seven times drying the same parts of the same woman led her to notice things like that. Smooth skin, with pale sun freckles on her shoulders. She had the kind of shoulders that looked like they were made for sundresses. 

She stopped shivering as the other dried her, which was a relief, as Jess really didn’t want her to catch cold because Jo wanted to be cleansed. But she still trembled slightly, something Jess chalked up to nerves. She was pretty sure this was not a normal thing for her.

Shoving the last cloth – Dora the Explorer – back into the plastic bag they’d saved for exactly this purpose, Jess stood. She checked the book, frowning as she read each of the instructions over again. She’d read through this a few times, but now that she knew what that one little annotation was about… damn. Well, this little ritual was going to get just a touch more awkward. 

“Okay.” Jess glanced up at Jo, who smiled back nervously, looking out of place, standing awkwardly in the middle of the cabin’s main room, naked as the day she was born. “Time to travel to the water.”

‘The water’ was apparently supposed to be something impressive. A lake, a river, an ocean, even. A pool of manmade water if something else was not available. Based on their particular circumstances – and their desire to not go out and get caught performing a cleansing ritual in a lake in some town neither of them had ever been to before, they did the next best thing.

“I feel stupid,” Jo muttered, standing beside the bathtub.

“Me too,” Jess admitted, but shrugged. “Ready to drum up some negative energies?”

“…I am not going to sing.”

“Me neither. We’re improvising. Modernizing,” Jess winked at her, and reached over to flick the radio on. Some local easy rock station filled the room, and Jo snorted. 

“We’re so fucking this up,” Jo snickered.

“Sure, but we’re bringing a modern twist to a medieval deal,” she grinned. “Now, you’re supposed to focus on everything bad. The negative feelings, the demon’s leftover poison, any fear, anger, rage. You’re supposed to let it kind of boil to the surface. Let it flow through you, and out. We’re going to have to get it out of you and into the water.”

“Okay,” she nodded, fists clenched tightly, hands trembling slightly. “I can do that.”

Jess tried to force her own fears and terrors down, forcing the memories and images of hell to get away from the edges of her vision. She was pretty sure that if this ritual worked, it might work for her, too. But she was afraid that if she tried to focus on her own suffering as well as Jo’s, it wouldn’t work. Not that Jo was really suffering, it was just that the memories of hell didn’t really need to get mixed with the attempts to rid the other of all traces of a demon’s touch.

“I’m ready,” Jo nodded, and the other wasn’t able to miss the slight tremor in her voice, like she was barely holding onto control.

“In the water,” Jess murmured. 

Jo nodded, and clambered into the tub, standing in water up to her knees, hugging herself slightly, gripping her upper arms so hard that Jess could see the white of the other’s skin under her fingers from the squeezing. 

“Now I have to be ‘skyclad’ too,” she muttered, embarrassed as she stripped out of her clothes as quickly as she could. She’d thought ‘skyclad’ meant dressed in the colour of the sky, not naked, so she’d worn all blue, except for her bra, which was white. (She’d figured that clouds were white, and clouds were in the sky, after all…) But a few moments later, as skyclad as Jo was, Jess climbed into the tub as well, shivering slightly in the cold air. The only thing she had left on her were the bandages around the burn on her wrist. Those were never coming off, not now.

“Tell me,” she murmured, softly, meeting Jo’s eyes. “Tell me the fears. Tell me what the demon said to you. What it did.”

A visible shudder ran through Jo, and she closed her eyes tightly. 

“Tell me, Jo. You have to trust me, or this won’t work. We need to get it out of you.”

The other woman opened her eyes, and for just a moment, the look in them, of complete anguish and pain, nearly made Jess stumble back. But then Jo was speaking, and it was not about anything they were supposed to be doing the cleansing for.

“My father is dead. He was killed by a demon, which is why my mother won’t let me hunt. She’s terrified that whatever happened to him will happen to me, too, so she tries to keep me home and safe and away from danger, but she doesn’t understand that all of this constant smothering is only going to make it worse, is going to make me want to hunt down the son of a bitch that took my daddy away even more. I’ve been lying to her for so long now. I’ve been asking every hunter that I can find for advice, for help, for training. She has no idea, I don’t think. I mean, she owns a hunter bar, so it’s not as though she really expects me to keep completely away from all talk of hunting, but she really doesn’t think I know anything.”

Jo drew a deep breath, then kept going, just as eager, the words tumbling out of her like she’d finally removed a dam that had been holding them in place. 

“He used to tell me stories about what a hunter was, why they existed. He used to make up stories about hunters throughout history, different famous people that had actually been like him, that had killed monsters. He used to say that the reason that we did this was to save people. That’s what I want to do, but I didn’t start with that purpose. I followed you because I thought I could prove my mother wrong, and maybe I could finally take revenge on the thing that had killed my father. That’s why I’m really doing this, you see. I just really want to find the thing that killed my father, and kill it. If I can. I don’t want to chase just random things.” She drew a deep breath. “I want to kill demons. But that’s just the revenge talking,a nd I’m starting to get scared that it’s taking over me. I can’t seem to think about anything else, sometimes. I just want to kill it so badly… so badly it hurts. I don’t want to become like some of the other hunters I’ve seen come around the Roadhouse. Some of them forgot about everything but the hate, like Gordon did… that’s what’s scaring me, Jess. That I’m going to somehow fall victim to the demons because I will become so obsessed with them I’ll fall right into their little trap.”

She slumped down to sit on the edge of the old fashioned claw style tub, panting softly. “…there. I think that’s everything.”

“Wow.” Jess blinked, speechless.

Jo smiled faintly, flushed. “Sorry. Verbal diarrhea.”

“Honestly, I think that’s what this ritual is supposed to make you do,” she admitted. “Make you spill out everything that’s really bothering you, not what you think is the issue. C’mon,” she offered the other her hands, helping to tug her up. “Let’s finish up.”

She nodded, smiling in relief.

Jess started to walk widdershins around the other woman, though it was difficult in the bathtub. Jo tried to make herself as small as possible so that the other was able to do it, and Jess listened quietly as the other ordered herself around – told herself why exactly this fear was bad, why it bothered her, why she wanted to stop it. It was almost like listening in on the lecture your sibling was receiving, only it wasn’t that you were listening because you wanted to laugh, but instead it was almost dirty. It was like voyeurism, and not for the thrill, but for the shame of it. 

“I’m done,” Jo murmured at last.

Nodding, she shifted back to stand in front of the other woman, then reached across the bathroom to pick up a steak knife from the counter. She hesitated for a moment, teeth grit as she cringed, then swiftly made a quick slash on the meatiest part of her palm, then held out her hand for Jo’s.

Swallowing, Jo offered her hand, and flinched just slightly when Jess made a quick short cut on her palm.

Setting the knife aside, she pressed their hands together so that the bloody cuts touched, holding them together tightly for a moment, then slowly slid both of their hands under the water. “We’re letting the energy go, okay?”

Jo nodded, eyes closed again, focusing on something only she could see behind her eyelids.

Slowly, the tension drained out of Jo’s shoulders, and slowly Jess released the other’s hand, watching her. 

Opening her eyes, she smiled at her. “Wow.”

“Yeah,” Jess murmured, relieved.

Jo stood up on her tiptoes in that tub, then, slowly sliding her arms around Jess’ neck before she pressed her lips to the other woman’s, kissing her deeply and sweetly and a hot determination that made Jess’ knees weak.   
  
  
[Part Nine](http://sparrowshellcat.dreamwidth.org/41355.html)

 

  



	9. sparrowshellcat | And Sing of Sweet Surrender - Part Nine

  
  


__  
  
Oh no,  
here it is again  
I need to know  
when I will fall into decay

“I found a new case for us,” Jo grinned, leaning across the table as she pushed the newspaper across towards Jess.

Looking up from her bacon and eggs, which she had been picking delicately at in an attempt to avoid the burned bits, Jess leaned forward to consider the obituary that her table mate had circled, hissing. “Shit, that is revolting, Jo. I have completely lost any taste I might have had for breakfast. Ever.”

The other woman snorted. “It’s not that bad.”

“They found the man in the chimney,” she said, firmly. “Stuffed into a space that you might be able to fit a cat into, they found a three hundred pound man. The article says it made him nineteenfeet long.”

“Yeah… that part was a little gross…” Jo tugged the paper back, considering the page. “What exactly could make a person get sucked into a chimney like that? Some kind of creature, maybe…”

“Springheel Jack,” Jess guessed, sipping at her coffee, grimacing slightly. It was burnt. 

“I think he just kind of bounced around and burned footprints in people’s roofs,” the other murmured, sipping at her coffee, still reading, not even seeming to notice the burnt flavour. “I don’t think he ever actually killed people, and I really don’t think that he ever pulled people up chimney’s. I think there are some stories about an evil imp who impersonated Santa Claus, or something…”

“That was Claus’ brother. Zwarte Piet.”

“What now?” she looked up at that, blinking at the other woman.

“Zwarte Piet. Ah – Black Peter.” Jess flushed slightly. “My grandmother was Dutch, came overseas after the second World War. She used to scare the crap out of us around Christmas, threatening that if we were bad, Zwarte Piet was going to come and crack us over the head. But he wasn’t supposed to pull people up the chimney, or anything, just give coal and crack you upside the skull if you were a brat. So unless this guy got a concussion before he was turned into the milkshake in the chimney straw…”

“Ugh, that is the grossest mental image I’ve ever had, thank you,” Jo groaned, closing her eyes. “You want to look into it, or…?”

“Yeah. But it sounds like a poltergeist to me,” she stood, tugging bills out of her pocket, tossing them on the table.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah… most people think of poltergeists like from the movie. No one remembers that in the old days, they were much more terrifying than just throwing around plates and moving chairs and things. They were old school scary spirits. Human souls who were trapped in one place so long they got twisted and bent, almost like demons.”

“I know that, Jess. I do know what I’m talking about… but I don’t know if any poltergeist has the kind of power needed to really twist a person up like that and shove them in that teeny tiny space. I think it might have to be something more… well, powerful.”

“Like what, a witch?”

“Maybe… something with the power to curse a person,” Jo stuck the paper under her arm, leading the way back out to the car. They’d recently chosen a new one out of a nice parking garage, and this one Jo said that they needed to keep – baby blue and low to the ground, wide and kind of finned, like a yuppie suburbs version of the Batmobile. It was old, but in good shape – and according to Jess’ more car minded companion, it was a 1959 Chrysler Imperial Southampton. Jess referred to it as the boat, because it was roughly the size and maneuverability of one. “Like some kind of wizard?”

“Pointy hat and all?” Jess blinked, slipping into the driver’s seat. What was truly wonderful about this car, as far as she was concerned, was the fact that the car’s apparently naïve owner had honestly left the keys on top of the visor, so they hadn’t even had to punch the vintage ignition.

“Oh, hell, no, but there are such a thing as real wizards, anyways.” The other frowned, considering the paper. “I dunno.”

“Demon?” she suggested, twisting to rest her arm on the back of Jo’s seat as she backed out of the parking space. “I mean, we seem to run into them more often than not… think a demon might do this?”

“Well, a demon would sure have the power to do it, but… I can’t see them willingly doing so,” she frowned.

“You think they’d be forced to do it?” she snorted, amused.

“No, just… you know… why would they do it?” she shrugged. “I mean… demons like killing people, sure, and fucking with them, and doing whatever they want. But they don’t usually, I dunno, make people really skinny and shove them in small places. Making them skinny by sucking all the blood out of them, or by making them seal a deal with them, or something, sure, but… it just seems strange. You know?”

“Yeah, I know… weird.” She muttered, fingers tapping on the steering wheel. “It bothers me.”

“So… we’re not going?” Jo asked, considering her.

“…no, we’re going.” Jess sighed, and glanced at her friend, grinning. “We’re gonna go. We’re gonna investigate, and we’re going to figure out what the hell is making people into silly putty versions of themselves. Did the guy have a single unbroken bone?”

“Nope. Every one was broken, even the ones in his fingers, and those teeny tiny ones in the ear. The guy was turned into a giant sac of bone powder.”

Jess shuddered. “That is a wonderful mental image, babe.”

“I know,” she smirked, stretching.

Things had changed in a way that seemed small, but was actually quite significant, since the ritual. They didn’t talk about what had happened during it, because that was part of the point of the ritual – you didn’t talk about what had happened afterwards. After all, it was supposed to be expelled from the body, from the mind, from the air around them. But the trust they’d both shown during the ceremony had apparently meant something. They slept in the same bed now, every night, with no hesitation, and half the time they weren’t even clothed. There had been no sex, but caught moments of brief kisses and fleeting, gentle affection. It was good.

And while Jess might occasionally wish she could just jump the shorter woman and get what she was craving, she was mostly just glad that everything was as different as it had been with Meg as possible.

She glanced over at the other, smiling softly. Jo was starting to fall asleep, nodding off quietly. “You can lean on me.”

“Mmm?” Jo glanced up, then nodded, and leaned over a little, resting her head on Jess’ shoulder, quietly. Closing her eyes, she curled into her, sighing gently, then slipped into sleep.

Tapping her fingers on the steering wheel, Jess smiled.

She knew that she should be more hesitant about this. Hell, until Meg had rather strongly come onto her, she’d never done anything sexual with another woman, just occasionally pecked others in the bar, usually for dares or when drunk. But there was nothing freaking her out now. Even though she’d never really planned on being with a woman, or wanted it, here she was, with Jo Harvelle curled against her side, sleeping on her, and she wanted her. A lot. 

But hell, she didn’t really want to freak out about things. It was nicer, not freaking out. Besides, the lifestyle she was leading these days wasn’t exactly conducive to normal relationships. So this quiet thing that was not really a thing with Jo… this was good.

Humming softly, feeling warm and genuinely happy for the first time since she’d risen from the grave, Jess drove down the road, fingers tapping on the wheel.

“Wake up, Jo, c’mon, we’re there,” Jess said softly, a few hours later, as she shook her friend’s shoulder, gently.

Jo’s eyes slowly fluttered open, and she sighed softly. “Mmmh?”

“Time to wake up,” she pressed her lips briefly to the other’s, then grinned, sitting up and stretching. “Mmm. Time to figure out what’s making the milkshake people stuff.”

“Nnngh,” she groaned, and leaned over to kiss Jess’ cheek for a moment, then slipped out of the car, cracking her spine as she stretched, then headed to the back of the car, digging around in the trunk. A few moments later, she offered Jess her weapons as she tucked a rifle into one of her duffel bags. “Okay, I think we have everything we need… you want to head inside, now?”

“Yep,” Jess nodded, and headed up the steps, cutting the police seal with her hunting knife, then slipped into the house.

It was silent and sort of eerie, partially because everything in the house looked perfectly normal and still, as though it had been just a normal day in a normal person’s house. There was no movement, no noise whatsoever, but everything seemed just normal, until they finally reached the living room. Even there, the only thing that was strange was the massive tarp spread across the carpet. Awkwardly, however, that tarp was bloodstained and covered in bits and pieces of… well… person.

“That is disgusting,” Jess announced, nose curling.

“Nnngh.” Jo looked away, shuddering.

“That is fucking gross,” she murmured, quietly, shaking her head. “Shit, okay… I’m gonna go looking for sulfur, or whatever else it might be… you want to check out the rest of the house?”

“Mmhmm,” Jo nodded, reaching over to squeeze Jess’ hand for a moment, then headed off towards the rest of the house, rifle firmly under her arm, ready to fire at a moment’s notice.

Jess took a deep breath, then started pacing the edges of the room, slowly, trying to find any signs of whatever might have done this. There was no obvious traces, no symbols drawn on anything, no objects or artifacts that she could point to and say, ‘Ah, that is what pulled him into the chimney!’ There were no claw marks from some kind of creature, no evidence whatsoever of what might have done this.

Taking another deep breath, she finally turned to the one thing in the room she had thus far managed to avoid – the massive stone fireplace.

It sat there, quietly, like an open stone maw, a hungry mouth that wanted to swallow up more victims, as though waiting for someone else to get sucked into it. It was just stone and brickwork, but it felt evil and hungry. 

Swallowing, she gingerly set her hand on the mantle, and leaned down, peering up into the blackness. What was that, in the darkness? If only she could see…

“Just what d’ya think yer doin’?!”

Jess jumped, startled, and yelped when her forehead crashed off the stone edge of the fireplace. Reeling back, she braced her hand against her forehead, blinking blearily at the shape in the doorframe, trying to make it consolidate into one person, instead of two dizzy blurry someones. “Woah…”

They stepped closer, and checked her head before she could tell them she was fine. “You ain’t supposed to be in this house.”

Blinking at the person as her vision slowly started to come back to itself, she realized that this was a man, and more specifically, a man dressed in a crisp police uniform. 

Oh shit.

“Ah… yeah, I know, officer, but… see, this was my cousin’s house, and when I heard what had happened, well… I mean… I just wanted to get something of him. to keep, so I could remember her, properly.”

His eyes narrowed as he considered her. “From the chimney?”

“Oh, that, I – thought I heard a bird up there. And I know he used to have problems with that, birds getting in his chimney. I just wanted to see if it was.” Jess thought her lies were actually fairly good, if she said so herself. It wasn’t a good thing to be proud of, and she knew that, but she had always managed to balance just the right level of believability with a believable emotional response. After all, being too slick and smooth about lies didn’t actually make it realistic. You needed it to be plausible, but with real human feeling behind everything.

He frowned, and nodded slowly. “What do you know about this case, miss….?”

“Cynthia Gallagher.” She made up a random name, and hoped to all hell she’d remember it later.

“Cynthia.” He nodded, frowning. “What do you know?”

“Only that my cousin was found dead,” she shrugged, playing dumb. “I was really broken up when I heard… I mean, I have never been terribly close with my cousin, but I did love him, and I miss him. We were supposed to be visiting him soon.”

“We?” he asked, eyes narrowed. 

“My friend and I.” she said, quickly, crossing her arms, hoping to all hell that her guns were hidden under her coat. The last thing she needed was for this officer to think he needed to frisk her for any reason, and find all the random little ‘occult’ items scattered on her person. A hunter might think her assortment normal, but for a normal person, they were sort of crazy.

The officer frowned, glancing behind him as though he knew Jo was somewhere in the house, nostrils flaring.

“So… do they know what happened to him yet, officer?” she asked, hopefully. She could pretend to be hopeful because she was supposed to be a grieving family member who just wanted answers, and her genuine hope that they’d find a hint as to what had killed him easily translated as though it was real. 

“Of course they do,” he frowned, blinking at her. 

“….they do?” Jess blinked back.

“He was a witch.” He said, matter of factly, as though this was the most normal thing in the world to say. “He was a witch, with powers derived by signing the devil’s book, but he decided to back out of the deal, and decided not to honour his contract, so his demon took it outta his hide.”

She took a step back from the officer, blinking at him in alarm.

“Oh come on now, don’t be a fool, Jessica.” He drawled, and her blood ran cold as the man stepped closer to her, eyes flickering like shutters for a moment, sinking into full black as he approached. Demon. “We all know who you are. You reek of hell still, even if you got out to the surface again. Even if you got out of our grip, we all know who you are, and we will get you back.”

“ _Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus_ ,” she started, quickly, trying to get the exorcism out before he could get to her, then gagged. Her chest suddenly hurt, like someone was stabbing her, and she staggered back again, gasping in pain. It fucking hurt.

“Not a good idea, little girl,” the demon drawled, smirking.

She coughed, gagging, hand over her mouth. It felt like her lungs were trying to claw their way out of her body, just trying to rip themselves to pieces and get out of her body. Pulling her trembling fingers away from her mouth, her eyes widened, shocked at the amount of blood on her fingers, across her palm. 

“I told you, we will pull you back into our world, into hell,” he grinned, too many teeth.

Jess gagged on her own blood, reminded of biting off her tongue again, staggering to her knees as she struggled to breathe, blood splattering on the hardwood floor.

Oddly, the thought flickered through her mind that if she had fallen just two feet to the left, she would have at least coughed the blood up onto the tarp, with all the other blood, where it would be easily cleaned up.

“ _Crux sancta sit mihi lux_!” a new voice called, and Jess looked up, desperately, seeing her lover in the doorway. 

“Jo…” she rasped through the blood, gagging slightly. 

The demon spun, roaring, then howled when the other woman raised and dropped her arm like a slash through the air, throwing holy water in the demons face. He screamed and howled, clutching at his face.

“ _Non draco sit mihi dux_ ,” Jo continued, speaking so rapidly her words were almost slurred as she stormed forward, slashing holy water over and over at the demon, not letting him a moment’s respite. “ _Non draco sit mihi dux, nunquam suade mihi vana sunt mala quae libas, ipse venena bibas_!”

The man’s head was thrown back, and a black cloud billowed out of him, hovering in the air for a moment, then the cloud slid out of the window, as though fleeing, and his body slumped to the ground, lifeless.

“Oh fuck,” Jess grunted, the coughing and the bleeding stopped, though her chest still hurt.

Jo dashed to her side, grabbing her arms and hauling her up. “Car.”

“Yes ma’am,” she drawled, laughing weakly.

“Don’t call me ma’am, that’s my mother,” Jo grimaced, but smiled as she slid her arm around Jess’ waist, leading her towards the car. “And I don’t want you sleeping with my mother.”

She laughed weakly. “I don’t want to sleep with your mother, either.”

“Good. C’mon. Good work distracting it.”

Jess snorted, wiping her bloody mouth with her sleeve, wincing at the amount on the fabric. “Was that my job?”

“Mmmhmm.” Jo nodded, and helped her into the passenger seat. “Let’s go get you cleaned up, distracting sidekick.”

“Yes mistress,” she smiled, tired.

“Better.”

\----

 

__ Precious and fragile things  
Need special handling  
My God what have we done to you? 

“We are the worst hunters in the universe.”

Jo snorted, looking up at Jess. “Why would you say that?”

“What are we doing?”

“Watching badly subtitled Bollywood movies, pigging out on Big Macs and fries, and sitting around in our underwear,” the other chirped, smirking as she dug in her paper bag, tugging out a little package of sweet and sour sauce to dip her fries in. 

“Exactly. And what are we not doing?” she asked, popping some of the lettuce from the bottom of her burger box in her mouth.

“Hunting?” Jo guessed.

“Exactly. Ergo, worst hunters in the universe.”

“C’mon, even Samuel Colt got some downtime every now and then.”

Jess perked up at the name. She couldn’t really help it. Even though she had finally decided not to try and track Sam down, deciding that it was healthier for him to grieve and move on than to freak him out and send his world crashing down around his ears, she still missed him. “Samuel Colt? The gun maker?”

“Not just a gun maker,” Jo turned to face Jess, instead of the television. It wasn’t as though the plot of the movie was really going to make any less sense if she didn’t pay attention. “Samuel Colt is a legend among hunters. He created the Colt.”

“…weren’t all of his guns called Colts?”

“Yeah, but not all of them were like this gun. Ever hear of the ‘dead man’s gun’?”

Jess frowned. The name sounded familiar… “Wait, wasn’t that the gun that a single shot from it could kill anything instantly, and anything shot by it went straight to hell, no matter what it was?”

“Exactly!” she nodded, fervently. “There are even rumours he killed an angel.”

She snorted. “Well, in order to believe that story, you have to first believe that angels are real.”

“You don’t?” Jo hesitated, waylaid momentarily.

“I’ve never seen one. I don’t believe in things I haven’t seen,” Jess murmured, feeling very jaded, just uttering those words. “Demons and hell, I believe in. heaven… seems like a sweet fantasy to me.”

The other woman looked torn for a moment, like she wanted to argue, the point, but returned to the original story instead. “Anyway, regardless, the colt, the dead man’s gun, it could do things that no other gun could do. Sure, it still depended on the wielder. I mean, you couldn’t just shoot in the air and expect it to hit the person you were trying to hit, but as long as you hit them, they were kaput. Dead. And if you shot the body the demon was in, killing it, that killed the demon too!”

“So?” she shrugged, shifting so that her legs were bent and her arms were resting on her knees. “I can do that with an exorcism, too.”

“No, no no no no no,” Jo held up her hands, quickly. “An exorcism does not kill the demon.”

“…what does it do, then?” she frowned, leaning forward slightly. 

“It just kicks them out,” the other pointed at Jess with one of her fries. “Sends them packing, back to hell. It just kicks them completely out of the body, but they’re not dead, you can’t kill demons, that’s the thing about it. There is no way to actually kill demons. Except for this gun.”

Jess whistled, impressed. “Sounds like a hell of thing to have. Where is it?”

“Well, no one knows, do they?” Jo frowned slightly, leaning back, crunching on her fries again. “When Samuel Colt died, he left it to his son, but he didn’t hold onto it for very long. At that point, it started bouncing around from hand to hand. Some of the people recorded as holding onto it were hunters, some of them were just people who wanted a fool proof gun. It was generally assumed that it was sort of cursed, maybe not really cursed, but people who had the gun didn’t have it for very long. Maybe people just stole it from them, not sure.”

“Kind of like a supernatural monster killer version of the Hope Diamond,” Jess offered.

“Only usually the deaths were slightly more frequent and slightly more gruesome than with that rock,” Jo snorted.

“Oh, come on, the Hope Diamond deaths were both creative and gruesome,” she grinned.

“That they might have been. But the Colt…” she shook her head. “There’s a really good reason they called it ‘dead man’s gun’, and it wasn’t just because the damn gun could kill anything.”

Jess shook her head, sipping at her milkshake. “So no one has any idea where it is now?”

“None. But hunters all over the world are looking for the damn thing. Hope they find it, too. I’d like it to be in play again.”

“You want to kill the thing that killed your father,” Jess murmured. They hadn’t spoken again of the cleansing ritual – they were never to speak of the actual ritual and the things that happened in it again, so said the book, but Jo had since murmured things here and there about her father.

Jo shrugged, picking at one of the fries. Her reactions weren’t as strong about the death as she might have expected – except that Jess had felt that energy flowing through the water, as creepy and strange as that thought seemed to her. She really believed that the other woman had been cleansed of all of her resentment and obsession about that issue. “Sure, I’d like to kill him. I would. But I think there are other, bigger issues that the gun might be used for. I mean, think about it. Preachers the world over are saying we’re in the end times – wouldn’t a gun that could maybe kill the devil be a great thing to have right about now?”

“Preachers have been saying we’re living in the end times since someone sat down and wrote a book about what was going to happen in those ‘end times’.” Jess pointed out, rolling her eyes.

“True. But we’re hunters, Jess. We know the signs. We are in the end times.”

“You really think so?” she hesitated, considering her.

“I don’t think so. I know so. I know that the way things are going, this world isn’t going to last much longer.” Jo shrugged. “Either the devil comes back to the earth and makes us all his unholy bitches, or we’re gonna blow ourselves into the sun. Really, I think either possibility is entirely possible.”

She smirked slightly, nodding. “True.”

“If you don’t believe in heaven,” Jo spoke up suddenly, the issue clearly still bothering her, “Does that mean that you think everyone goes to hell when they die?”

“Yes.”

“…you didn’t even think about that.” She blinked, surprised.

To an extent, Jess was surprised herself with how abruptly she’d answered that question, but the honest truth, if the other woman wanted it, was that she believed that every human being, regardless of how good or kind or pious they might have been when they were alive, went into a hole in the ground, and then went under the torturer’s knife. 

“Why do you say that?” she asked, softly. “Because of the whole ‘never seeing an angel’ thing?”

“Partly.” She murmured, picking at a scab on her knee. She’d scraped that up last week when she and Jo had been slipping into the vampire nest and she’d caught her jeans on the edge of a board that had been used at one point to close up the old school they were camping out in. She had loved those jeans, too, it felt bad to throw them out. “Partly because I just know that much more about hell.”

“Why? I mean… I’ve seen demons, too. I know about them. That doesn’t make me feel like I know a lot about the firey pit.”

“Pit, yes. Fire, no.”

“I don’t follow,” Jo frowned, brows furrowed. 

“If we’re going to talk about this, I need to be drunk,” Jess said abruptly, slipping off the bed, and digging in her backpack. She’d picked up a few supplies when she’d gone into town to get their dinner anyway, so she silently offered Jo a small mickey of cinnamon whiskey, then settled back on the bed herself with a large bottle of Jack Daniels. Folding her legs Indian style, she peeled the seal off the square bottle, then cracked off the cap, and leaned back as she took several deep swallows. It was like she was trying to chug the thing, but she just needed that stinging burn, sliding down her throat like liquid fire, warming her from the inside out as she felt it rush through her veins.

“Woah, pace yourself…” the other reached forward to touch her arm, making her lower the bottle for a moment. “You still need that liver, you know.”

Jess shuddered. “He liked livers.”

“Who liked livers?” she blinked at her, confused. 

“He did. The torturer.” 

“You really need to explain, I don’t – I don’t understand,” Jo said, quietly, shifting closer to Jess on the bed, shoving the remains of their dinner aside as she sat directly in front of her, her knees pressing into Jess’ as she rested her hands on the other’s thighs, as though trying to send her strength through her palms. “Please, Jess.”

She met the other’s eyes for a moment, and had to look away. “I feel like I should be skyclad and doing widdershins,” she muttered.

“We don’t need that. Talk to me.”

Jess closed her eyes, then murmured, “Did your mother tell you that I had problems with my boyfriend?”

She had tried to hide this from Jo. She’d thought she’d hid it from Meg, but clearly that had failed. And that demon… that demon had known. This secret was not going to stay secret much longer, and she felt good about Jo, felt like she wanted this to last, so she didn’t want it to come out wrong, like when some sadistic demon thought it would be funny to ruin things.

She had to tell her.

“Something like that, I heard something, yeah,” Jo nodded. “What about it?”

“He was a hunter. I think he was, anyway, before he knew me. He did the whole thing – watching newspapers for strange, unusual murders… salt lines under the door frame. All of it. But he never mentioned it to me, so I thought nothing of it… until the night he came home from a weekend with his brother.” Jess drew a deep breath. “I was expecting him, so I cleaned up, made cookies. I was going to take a shower when I heard the door open. I thought it was him, so I – I went to see him, but…. It wasn’t.”

“Who was it?” the other asked, quietly.

“I dunno. But he was… his eyes were yellow. Like… canary yellow. I really think he was a demon, but I’ve never seen a demon with anything but black eyes before.”

“Crossroad demons have red eyes,” Jo offered, quickly. “The book said so. And Leviathan is the green eyed monster, even though he’s a demon too, so it happens that demons have different coloured eyes.”

“That actually doesn’t make me feel better,” Jess murmured.

“Sorry.” She flushed.

“It doesn’t matter, I was already pretty sure that’s what he was,” Jess shrugged, leaning back as she took another deep pull of the Jack, sighing softly. She was starting to feel it burn through her veins. “I was pretty sure already. Anyway, there he was in my room, all yellow eyed, and he said, ‘Don’t take this personally, sweetheart, but…’”

She took a moment, taking a deep breath. These words were burned into her head, like they’d been branded in her mind. “’Don’t take this personally, sweetheart, but you make him happy, and I can’t really let that happen. Y’see, I’ve got plans for your boy, and you’re in the way’. And then… then I started to bleed.”

The other woman shifted slightly closer, confused. “Bleeding?”

“From my stomach. He slashed me right open, I don’t know how. He never moved.”

Jo’s fingers trailed to Jess’ bare stomach, confused. “There’s no scar.”

“I know,” she murmured. “But I was slashed right open, like a c-section scar, or something, right open, bleeding everywhere, and then… he slammed me against the wall. He didn’t move, and I was against the wall, and I got pulled up, up to the ceiling. Then he came home, and there I was, trapped. I was starting to – I had lost so much blood already.” Her voice cracked. She didn’t want to talk about this, but now that she was speaking, she didn’t seem able to stop, it was like her mind was determined to expel everything all at once.

“Jess…”

“He saw me,” she interrupted the other. She just needed to say this. It needed to come out. “He saw me, and I saw this look of – of recognition. He knew why I was there. He saw me on that ceiling, bleeding my guts out, and the only thing I saw was that he knew what was happening, why I was there. And then the fire started. Burned me alive.”

“You don’t have any scars,” Jo murmured, confused.

“I know.”

“How is that possible? How is it possible for you to be burned apart, and not – “

“See this?” Jess held up her hand, tensor bandages still wrapped tightly around it. “These are the only marks I have. The only ones.”

“Can I – “ Jo reached for the bandages.

“In a minute,” Jess tugged her arm back. “Let me tell the rest of what happened.”

She hesitated, but nodded slowly. 

She took a few deep, steadying breaths, and a few deep, steadying swallows of the Jack, then murmured, “I don’t really know how much the fire burned me, but it pretty much scorched our apartment. The floors were still solid, and a lot of our stuff was still… mostly… intact, but the ceilings of the whole building were destroyed. I was on the ceiling, so I was entirely engulfed, but there was enough of me left that they buried me, they didn’t cremate me. I don’t even want to know what would have happened if they’d cremated me.”

“Cremated – Jess, seriously, what are you talking about?!” Jo was looking like she seriously though the other woman was just fucking with her, just trying to make her believe something so ridiculous that it couldn’t possibly be true. “Seriously, this isn’t funny.”

“I know it isn’t.” Jess met her eyes. “I went to hell.”

The other hesitated. 

“I’ve been to hell, Jo.”

“That’s not possible. Jess, I know that something happened, but… people don’t come back from hell.”

“Don’t I know it.” Jess murmured, and started slowly unwinding the bandages around her arm, quietly. “I thought I was facing a full eternity of hell, of suffering, of torture. But then… something happened.”

“What happened?” Jo asked, frowning.

“I don’t know.” She admitted. “I don’t really… remember. But what I do remember is waking up in my coffin, four days after I had died, with no scarring, no cuts… every wound I had ever gotten and scarred from had disappeared. I was as smooth as I had ever been. Except for this.” She finished unwrapping her bandaged arm, and offered her wrist to her friend.

Jo reached forward, gingerly taking the other’s hand, twisting and turning it a little so that she could look at the scar. It was still raw and shiny, like a fresh burn, a clear handprint, fingers curled around her wrist , around the base of her hand. It still looked like some kind of fire elemental had reached down and grabbed her, yanking her up by the hand. “What is this? I’ve never seen anything like that before…”

“I know,” she murmured, sighing softly. “I dunno.”

“It looks like someone grabbed you… it’s a full on handprint,” she gaped at her, shocked. “Do you think someone full on yanked you out of there?”

“Yeah, I think so, but…”

“What did it, right?” Jo asked, softly, fingertips brushing over the clear fingerprints. 

“Exactly.”

Looking up at her, she met Jess’ eyes, and whispered, “You really were in hell, weren’t you?”

“Yeah.” She whispered.

“Fuck. You were really in hell. You were… I didn’t even think… but you’re a hunter, you’re a good person…”

“I hunt because I was in hell,” she murmured. “Because I know what its like for people trapped in the pit, and if there is any way I can prevent them from ending up back in that pit with everyone else… even if it’s just a little slower getting there, then that’s what I’m going to do. I can help them. And yeah. I was a good person. I was a pretty good person, I always figured I’d go past those legendary pearly gates when I died. But then I died, and I was on a torture rack.”

Jo flinched, fingers curling in Jess’, holding onto her. “You think everyone…?”

“Yeah,” she whispered softly. “Everyone goes to hell.”   
  
  
[Part Ten](http://sparrowshellcat.dreamwidth.org/41529.html)

\----

 

  



	10. sparrowshellcat | And Sing of Sweet Surrender - Part Ten

  


 

  


“You’re starting to scare me with this fanfic thing.”

Jude yelped, startled, cracking her head off the inside of the fridge. Whimpering, she slowly tugged her head back out of the fridge, rubbing at the back of her head as she blinked at her best friend, blearily. “….what?”

“You are starting to scare me.” Sera crossed her arms over her chest. “With the fanfiction.”

“…why?” she blinked at her, carrying the milk she’d been digging to find over to the table, pouring it over her Fruit Loops. Sitting at the table, she started eating, considering the other woman, who was already dressed neatly and professionally for the day at the ‘office’. “I haven’t even been showing it to you, seriously. It’s not taking time from my editing or anything, so…”

“I know what your livejournal is, freak, of course I was able to read it, whether you showed me or not.” She rolled her eyes.

“…oh. Good point. Still.” She shrugged, catching the dribble of milk as it ran down her chin. “What’s wrong?”

“You are aware that you are getting really obsessed with this, right?” Sera sat at the table, across from her, folding her hands on the table top as she considered Jude seriously. “You are writing an almost scary amount very quickly, and it’s getting darker and darker and more and more twisted…”

“That’s just how the story’s going,” she shrugged, searching through the loops for a green one. “So?”

“It’s just…. It’s not like you, Jude. It’s starting to get scary.”

“Don’t be silly,” she rolled her eyes, crunching away. “Like you said. It’s fanfic. It’s just a story. People write way worse things all the time. I’m just writing a stupid story about someone that died in canon and I just don’t think she should have. No big deal. 

“Big deal,” Sera muttered, quietly.

“What, you want me to stop posting it? I can stop posting it,” Jude shrugged.

“Not offering to stop writing?”

“No,” she said, simply, standing to set her bowl in the sink. 

“…why not? If I asked, would you stop writing?” Sera considered her seriously, concerned. She wasn’t about to tell Jude about it, but the other woman was starting to show signs of strain. There were constantly dark circles under her eyes, and she looked worn out, haggard, like she wasn’t sleeping unless she outright passed out. Jude looked like she’d been dragged backwards through the woods, then dropped in a muddled pile in the middle of the kitchen. “If I said, ‘Jude, I’m worried about you, please stop writing this damned story’, would you?”

“No.” Jude dug in the fridge again, straightening with an apple juice box, tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth as she tried to stab the plastic straw into the little silver spot.

She sighed heavily, though she’d been expecting that answer. “Why not?!”

“Because this story needs to be written.” She shrugged, finally succeeding in getting the straw in. “The story of Jessica Moore needs to be put to paper.”

“But why?!” she demanded.

Jude blinked, as though she hadn’t been expecting that question. She looked sort of forlorn standing there, like an exhausted and rumpled little orphan Annie, shirt buttoned on the wrong button holes, hair in the messiest pair of braids Sera had ever seen, glasses sliding down her nose as she sipped on the straw of her juice, clearly thinking hard. 

“Well?” 

“I dunno,” she shrugged, and the childlike moment was passed, leaving just her friend, looking like a royal mess. “It just has to be written. Look, I’m gonna go to bed, now.”

“I could take your computer away!” Sera howled after her as the other padded barefoot past her.

“I got notebooks!” she called, waving with one hand.

\----

 

__You talk too much.  
Maybe that’s your way   
Of breaking up the silence  
That fills you up

“….what the hell is this?”

“This is breakfast in bed served by a naked lady,” Jo grinned, only slightly flushed as she climbed onto the bed, setting a tray on the bed beside Jess, then sat beside it, hands in her lap. She was, in fact, as naked as the day itself, which Jess was more than willing to admit was a sight she was never going to get tired of. “So eat up.”

“Breakfast is McGriddles and hash browns?” Jess snorted, sitting up and rubbing the sleep out of her eyes, yawning. 

“Yep. I went out. Found us a job, fresh shells for the shotguns, and breakfast. And somewhere, the courage to strip naked. But that was mostly done cause I found your wallet when I was digging in your backpack yesterday.”

“…you were in my backpack?” Jess blinked at her, breakfast sandwich halfway to her mouth.

“Yeah. Remember, I needed the first aid kit, and you said it was in your bag?”

“Oh, right,” Jess nodded, taking a bite of her food, chewing happily, pleased. “Mmm… I miss breakfast. We’re always on the road in the morning, why the hell don’t we hit more drive throughs?”

“Cause we’re poor.” Jo reminded her.

“Oh right,” she nodded, still chewing. “So what did you find in my bag?”

“Your wallet. With your license.”

“So?”

“It’s January 24th, Jessica.” Jo said with a grin of amusement, wiggling slightly as she waited for the other woman to get what she was saying.

Jess choked on her McGriddle.

“Happy Birthday!” she crowed, laughing. 

Coughing a few times, Jess finally cleared the bit of egg and bacon out of her throat, and swallowed, then blinked at the other woman, surprised. “Did you seriously decide to give me you naked for my birthday?”

“Did.” She confirmed, grinning.

“…that is definitely one of the best birthday presents I have ever been given in my life.” Jess blinked.

Laughing, Jo squirmed forward, leaning over the tray to kiss her, sweetly. 

“Thanks,” she murmured.

“Hey, I figured you deserve a good birthday,” she grinned at the other woman, then sat back to half flop beside her friend, head resting on Jess’ thighs as she looked up at her, lying comfortably on the bed. Somehow she managed to make casual nudity look tomboyish despite the soft girly curves. Impressive skill, that. “So if you were born in eighty four, that makes you… twenty two, now?”

“Yeah… that’s math for you,” she smirked slightly, leaning back into the pillows, considering the other woman. “Twenty two. I’ve been legal for a whole year now. How naughty.”

Jo snorted. “I’m not legal yet, and I probably drink as much as you.”

“…you’re not legal yet?” Jess blinked at her for a moment, then groaned. “Oh, I feel naughty now. Perving on an underaged woman…”

“I didn’t say underaged!” she laughed, swatting playfully at Jess.

“How old are you, then?” Jess considered her, licking ketchup after her thumb after her spectacular fail at opening the little ketchup packet for her hashbrowns. 

“I’ll be twenty one in June.” She smirked, and kissed Jess’ leg, playfully.

“Well, that’s not so bad, then,” she grinned, relieved.

“Toldja so.”

Jess snorted, and reached down to brush the other’s hair back. “Hungry?”

“Naw, I ate in the car on the way here.” Jo smiled back at her, softly, clearly pleased just to be there with the other. “So. It’s your birthday, which means its your party. What do you want to do for your twenty second? I understand that its traditional to get smashed on your twenty first, but that was last year. So what’s the plan for this year, pretty lady?”

She snorted, and offered, “Wanna go kill something?”

Jo laughed, and sat up, shifting the tray aside, and climbed slowly into Jess’ lap, straddling the other woman’s thighs. Hands curled on the older woman’s shoulders, she leaned forward, pressing into her, and gently kissed Jess, deeply.

Groaning softly, Jess tugged the other closer, quietly. Maybe this was wrong. Maybe it was effectively cheating on the boyfriend who thought she was dead, maybe it was going to go just as badly wrong as that poorly planned tryst with Meg had been, but damn she wanted it. Maybe it was because the other seemed just as nervous and just as excited as she was, maybe it was because Jo didn’t push and demand and make her feel like she was only doing it to get something out of it. Maybe it was just the alignment of the goddamn stars, she didn’t know. 

All Jess knew was that this was perfect, and that she wanted Jo.

And that was good.

Cupping the other’s jaw, she kissed her deeply, all but losing herself in the soft touch of Jo’s lips. It was honest, it was pure, and it was beautiful.

Finally, Jo broke the kiss, panting as she pressed her forehead to Jess’. “….fuck.”

“Yeah,” she laughed, equally breathless. “Wow.”

“So… you mentioned killing?”

Jess actually groaned softly, thumping her head back into the pillows, eyes twinkling slightly as she considered the other blond, pondering that. “Yeah… I did mention killing something.”

“Well, as luck would have it… I got a job. Should be fun for killing, but shouldn’t be too hard.”

“Oh yeah?” she considered her, hands slowly running up and down the other’s smooth thighs. “You shaved.”

“Well, I was planning this since about three this morning,” Jo grinned, wiggling mischievously. “Ever heard of cryptozoology?”

“Isn’t that the study of creatures that are generally considered to just be legends?” Jess frowned slightly, pausing for a moment in her stroking of the other’s legs before beginning again. “Like the Mothman, and Bigfoot and stuff, right?”

“Exactly.” The other nodded.

“Okay, so I’ve heard of it,” she shrugged. “So?”

“I found us a Mishibizhiw.”

“Bless you,” Jess said automatically, having never heard such an incredibly bizarre sound coming out of the other woman’s mouth.

Jo roared in laughter. “No, a Mishibizhiw!”

“And what is that?”

“It translates to… roughly, that is, underwater lynx panther.”

“….okay, I’m taking this with a grain of salt because you’re a smart cookie, Jo-girl, but you’re really gonna need to give me some kind of better explanation than that.”

Idly stroking the other’s stomach, and drawing circles on Jess’ skin, she explained, “In Ojibwa beliefs, there was a creature called the Mishibizhiw, or the underwater lynx panther.”

Holding up her hands, she said, “Can we just call it the cat thing, or something?”

“Underwater cat thing, then,” she grinned, amused, and kept explaining, still stroking Jess’ stomach. “Belief in this particular underwater cat thing is really spread across all of North America, Canada and the States, too, everywhere. A few people look at it as a really good thing, like its sort of a good luck symbol, but most people look it as something else – that is, you know, a giant underwater cat thing that eats people. Cryptozoologists pretty much think that when the natives told them about the giant thing in the water that was eating people, they figured it was a communication error thing because they didn’t speak English, and figured it was a crocodile, or an alligator or something. Not a, you know, giant underwater cat thing.”

Jess blinked. “…and you’ve found one.”

“Yep.” She grinned, wriggling. “In a little lake about fifteen miles from here. It’s been eating campers.”

“Nice.” She groaned. 

Jo bounced slightly on the other’s lap, running her hands through her hair and shaking her loose curls out before tugging it back into a low ponytail. “So, ready to go swimming?”

“Heh, sure, but how in the world do you kill an underwater cat thing? I don’t have a harpoon gun or anything. I just have bullets, and based on Mythbusters, that’s so not going to help us.”

“You kill ‘em with spears made of pine. I just happen to know that the whole place is surrounded by pine trees, and we can make pointy sticks pretty easily.”

“All right, then. Let’s go kill us a mishybizzy.”

“Mishibizhiw!” Jo laughed.

“Whatever,” Jess laughed, kissing her again before sitting up properly. “Now, sadly, let’s get some clothes on.”

Fourteen hours later, they were still sitting in their rowboat, spears in hands, lazily shining flashlights on the surface of the water as they looked for the giant underwater cat thing in the now rapidly setting sunlight. While both of them were pleased that January in Arizona was fairly comfortably warm still, sixty eight degrees was still not warm enough for them to really be happy about sitting in a boat over a large body of cold water all day. Especially for a birthday.

Still, parts of the day hadn’t been bad, because by the end of the long day, they were drunk as hell, and Jo was lying between Jess’ legs, head pillowed on the other woman’s breasts as they talked, only occasionally flicking the flashlight now.

“Another sandwich?” Jo offered, holding up a plastic wrapped sandwich from the little cooler. It had been full of beer and sandwiches when the day had started, but all that was left now were a few of the whole wheat, ham and lettuce sandwiches. “I’m not really hungry anymore, but…”

“Nnngh. Not me.” Jess held up a hand.

“Okay.” She murmured, snuggling a little closer into the other, sighing softly. “Sorry your birthday plan kinda sucked.”

“I decided around three o’clock this afternoon that you never really wanted to hunt the mishybizzy. You just wanted to excuse to pin me in a small area and keep me all to yourself for a day,” she grinned, smirking slightly when Jo squawked. “C’mon, you know the truth, you just wanted to recreate that night on the water bed.”

“If I wanted to really recreate the night on the water bed, I’d douse you in holy water, and rent a motel room with a water bed,” Jo smirked. “That would have been more fun than this.”

“I suppose that’s true, but at least we got to talk today. Last time I was too busy, you know, sleeping.”

“You’re pretty when you sleep.” Jo wriggled her eyebrows. “Except when you drool. Then it’s just kind of funny to watch you.”

“I don’t drool!” Jess yelped, laughing.

“Everyone drools, darling, that happens,” the other smirked, shifting carefully in the boat, trying not to make it rock too much as she sat up, right between Jess’ thighs, smiling down at her. “Sometimes, you snore, too. It’s not like it’s a big deal to admit that you’re human. Which is why I have a question for you… I’ve seen the scar. Why do you still wear the bandages?”

She hesitated, glancing down at her wrist, which was in fact still tightly bandaged. 

“I mean, I’ve seen it. Why hide it?” Jo asked, softly.

“Because I trust you.” She murmured. “I don’t trust anyone else. I don’t want people to just… see it. It’s something… I kinda want to say it’s personal, but that’s not exactly right. It’s almost… perverse. The kind of thing you hide because only your most closest of person ever should see. It’s like… porn.”

Jo blinked at her. “….porn.”

“Yeah.” She shifted to sit up, taking the other woman’s hands in her own. “Think about it this way. Imagine you have this porn star. Her job is to have sex. That’s what she does, she has sex, every day, for a hell of a lot of money, and it goes on the internet, and everyone in the world can take a look at it if they want to, and yeah, they can watch her being fucked in the ass by Mister Twelve Inch Cock. But that… that is like a regular scar, something that people can see anywhere, and go, ‘Oh look, that person got burned or cut sometime in the past’. No big deal.” Jess took a deep breath. “But when that porn star goes home at the end of the day, and kisses her children’s forehead, and crawls into bed with her high school sweetheart that she married when she was seventeen and in love, and they make gentle love there in that bed, alone, neither of them thinking about her job, but just about how much they love and enjoy each other, that’s intimate. And that’s what this scar feels like. It’s important and intimate and too significant to just share with the world.”

“…wow.” She murmured, quietly, curling her fingers in the other’s hands. “Wow.”

“…is it stupid?” she flushed, and groaned softly. “Yeah, that was a completely stupid way to put that, wasn’t it?”

“No, that was – that was brilliant.” Jo said, firmly. “I understand.”

“Really?” she looked up, hopefully. “That bizarre explanation actually made sense?”

Jo kissed her, softly, deeply, moving her lips gently against the other’s lips. “I think it’s perfect, Jess. Wear the bandages as long as you want, I think they are completely perfect.”

She snorted, and looped one of her arms around Jo’s back, tugging her back down to the bottom of the boat again, settling the other firmly on her chest as she kissed her, firmly, demanding. The other woman groaned, curling into her properly as they lay in the slightly rocking little rowboat, happy and making their own warmth as Jess lazily left her arm with the flashlight hanging over the edge of the boat, light bobbing steadily on the surface of the water. 

Until the flashlight was snatched out of her hand, pulling hard against the strap around her wrist.

Gasping, she broke the rather intimate kiss that she and her lover had gotten involved in, and jerked her hand back, struggling as she tried to get it out of the strap, then howled in shock when a massive, wet, black panther head burst out of the water, trying to snap his jaws around her wrist.

“Holy fuck!” Jo gasped, jerking Jess closer to her, the whole boat rocking dangerously.

The massive cat sank under the water, its massive tail slapping against the water, sending waves rippling across the surface of the water. The boat almost capsized, and Jo sat quickly, to lower the centre of gravity. Finally, the water evened back out to almost glass again, and the boat settled back in the water. Panting, Jo set her hand against her chest, and groaned, “Fuck, my heart was trying to pound out of my chest there…”

“No kidding,” Jess groaned, then yelped in surprise when the boat bucked again, and was literally thrown into the air.

Both women screamed as they slammed hard into the cold water, their boat being crumpled up like tin foil in the giant underwater cat thing’s jaws as their equipment rained down around them. Jess threw her arms over her head, crying out as she almost got hit in the head by their cooler, and struggled to get back away from the cat thing. The water was ice cold, freezing, much colder than the air had been, and she backed away, quickly.

Jo struggled to grab one of the pine spears, and jabbed at the massive black body where it rose out of the water. She struck its stomach, and the underwater cat thing howled at extremely high volume.

“Fuck!” Jess gasped, wincing. 

The Mishibizhiw raked its claws at its attacker, and Jo cried out, reeling back. Red spilled into the water, and Jess cried out in horror.

The underwater cat thing rose up, jaw seeming to unhinge as it howled ravenously.

“No!” Jess’ fingers curled around the other pine spear, and thrust hard as it tried to swoop down to snap those massive jaws down on Jo’s small body, shoving the spear right into the back of the thing’s throat. Its teeth tried to close on her arm, massive sharp incisors scratching at her arms, cutting her up as she shoved harder and deeper, shoving the point straight through the back of the Mishibizhiw’s head.

It twitched and shook, then slowly, sunk under the water, leaving her panting hard, trembling.

“Holy shit.” Jo gasped, hands clutching at her stomach.

“Yeah.” She shivered hard.

“We need to get onto the shore,” she said, gently, taking Jess’ arm, and tugging her towards the shore, shivering as they swam carefully, though Jo’s hands kept drifting back to her stomach, wincing.

They stumbled up the stone shore, drenched and frozen. They were both bleeding, profusely, only because of the water, which made all of the blood run faster and colder. 

“What’s the damage?” Jess demanded, knowing that her cuts weren’t as bad as the other woman’s, and darted over to Jo, kneeling to check her stomach. Her shirt itself was torn up and slightly shredded, a bloody mess. Shifting it up carefully, Jess winced. “We need to get you to the hospital.”

“I don’t have insurance,” Jo murmured, blood dripping from the corner of her mouth.

“Don’t care,” she muttered, and stood, taking the other woman’s hands, and tugging her towards the car. 

“Okay…” she murmured. “But you’re paying for it…”

\----

 

_ Hold it, I can feel you most when I’m alone  
I can feel your ghost when I’m alone _

“I hate hospitals,” Jo murmured, eyes closed.

“Yeah, well, you don’t really have a choice, do you, babe?” Jess grinned, sitting on the edge of the hospital bed, reaching up to brush her lover’s hair back, gently. “The mishybizzy managed to slice you up like a shish-kabob, so you get stuck in the hospital.”

The other snorted, and reached down to quietly run her fingers quietly up and down the other’s bandaged arms. “Thanks. But seriously, how are we paying for this?”

“…don’t get mad at me?”

“…sure, but why in the world would I get mad at you?” Jo blinked.

Jess dug in her backpack, which was sitting at the end of the bed, beside Jo’s feet, and pulled out a small stack of plastic cards. Searching through it for a moment, she handed three of them to Jo – a license, a social insurance card, and an insurance card, all for a blond woman in her early twenties named Marilyn Williams.

Jo blinked at them, and shifted to sit up, considering the cards. “Huh.”

“Yeah… one of the cars I got a few months ago had these in the glove compartment. I’ve been kinda… using other people’s identities… you know, for things like insurance and making sure that the cops don’t know who I really am. I mean, technically, I’m dead.”

“Good point.” She considered that, frowning slightly as she handed the cards back. 

“Naw, hold onto those, you might need those,” Jess smiled faintly, pushing them back into the other woman’s hands. “So even though I had insurance before, I couldn’t possibly use my own insurance anymore, because I’m pretty sure they cancelled it when I died. That’s kind of what they do.”

Jo snorted.

“What, it’s true,” she grinned, rubbing the other’s arm slightly. “So… how is the stomach doing?”

“Nnngh, healing.” She sighed, running her hand through her hair. “The Mishibizhiw got me pretty bad, Jess. Damn. This turned out to be the shittiest birthday party we’ve ever had.”

“It’s the only birthday party we’ve ever had.”

“Well, that’s going to be changing. I mean, for one, I’m turning twenty one in June, so we definitely need to have one for me, and then we need to have another one next year for you, then mine next year, then yours the year after, and mine the year after….”

Jess laughed softly, and shifted the cage like bed rails up, so that she could lie down beside the other, back pressed against the metal cage. “Are you suggesting that you and me are going to be together for years and years and years?”

“Mmm, that was the idea, yeah,” Jo murmured, leaning into the other, kissing her jaw. “That okay with you?”

“I’m not complaining, but I wouldn’t mind knowing in which capacity we’re going to be together in.”

“I would have thought that was obvious,” she drawled.

“Oh yeah?” Jess arched her brow.

“You want to hug me, you want to kiss me, you want to fuck me,” Jo sang, badly, mostly just trying to be a goofball as she wiggled on the bed, laughing when Jess started to laugh. “You’re stuck with me, baby girl, because you clearly are arse over tits for me, and I kinda get tinglies whenever I look at you, so….” She kissed her again, softly. “You and me, babe. Together, for the long haul.”

“Yes mistress,” she joked softly, curling into her, pressing their foreheads together.

“Mmm… dork,” she murmured softly, reaching up to gently push Jess’ curls off her forehead. “They are never going to let us stay here together, like this.”

“So? Stupid nurses can go fuck themselves, I’m not going.”

Jo snickered, gently playing with the very bottom of Jess’ t-shirt, stroking her stomach quietly. “I want to get out of here, Jess. I want to get somewhere private and quiet and safer. It’s awfully hard to ward a hospital room.”

“It really is,” she sighed, kissing the tip of the other’s nose.

She laughed, wriggling slightly as she squirmed against her, smiling up at the taller woman, softly. “Nurses approaching, ten o’clock.”

“Which direction is ten o’clock?” she hissed, trying to see as subtly as she could. 

“Pretend you’re the clock hand at the twelve o’clock position, and picture the directions from that sense,” Jo giggled. “So behind you, babe.”

She squirmed in the bed, looking behind her, then yelped when she realized the nurse was standing right behind her, clipboard in hand, and almost jumped. “Holy crap! They should put bells on you nurses, or something, so we know you’re coming!”

The young nurse smirked slightly. “I’ll make the suggestion. I do believe you’re in the wrong ward, young lady.”

Jess groaned, glancing at Jo, pouting slightly. “But I like this one better.”

He shook his head, amused. “I am aware of the fact that you’d much rather be curled up with your girlfriend, but she has several major stomach traumas to recover from, so she shouldn’t really be moving around on the bed trying to make sure that you’re both comfortable.”

“I’m not in pain,” Jo said quickly. 

“I know you’re not, but that’s because this,” he tapped the bag hanging from her iv stand, “Is pumped full of pain killers. So you are going to be flying high for quite some time. Which is why it’s even more important that you two don’t spend the night snuggling, because you might get yourself torn open without even realizing it. You, young lady,” he pointed at Jo, “Have to lie still on your back. And you,” he pointed to Jess, “Have to go back to your own bed.”

She pouted. “….do I really?”

“Mmhmm. Out.” He lowered the metal cage side, and waited until Jess reluctantly slid out of the bed. “If you wanna visit your girlfriend, you have to sit on a chair like everyone else, okay?”

Jess sighed, running her hand through her hair again. “Okay.”

“On the other hand, I’m still glad to see you out of bed and about.” He patted her shoulder. “You weren’t really moving around much after you were poisoned.”

“…poisoned.” Jess blinked at him.

“Whatever got you had venom in its claws,” he nodded, considering them both, smiling. “You’ve been slashed up pretty good by something with a hell of a lot of poison in its system. So we’ve got a good pile of anti-venoms running through your system, trying to figure out if we can get you out of your coma.”

Jess blinked at him, then blinked down at Jo. “I’m not in a coma.”

“Yes, sweetheart, you are. But at least your mind is working!” he beamed at her, patting her shoulder. “That’s a start.”

She blinked at him, then back at Jo. “…I’m confused.”

Jo was struggling to sit up, brows furrowed as she set her hands firmly on the mattress to keep herself upright. “Jess isn’t in a coma. She can’t be, she’s right here in front of me, I can friggin’ touch her!”

The nurse actually ruffled Jo’s hair, which made Jo back up sharply, startled and alarmed from the touch, shocked. “You say that, young lady, but remember who, exactly, got most ripped up by the giant underwater panther. Therefore, you have even more poison in you than our little Jess does, so don’t be silly. Of course you can see her.”

Jess gaped at the young man, alarmed. “What is going on?!”

“You call yourself hunters, and neither of you know anything about hunting. Look. You fought a native creature. You even killed it, and it infected you with its venom. Men used to dream of having this happen, would seek out the Mishibizhiw to kill it, for the sole purpose of being infected with the venom and fall into one of these comas. It was a sign of strength and power to be able to defy the Mishibizhiw and come out on the other side of the coma, strong and wiser for the experience.”

“And you are…?” she looked around, alarmed. Now that she thought about it, the ward did seem to be completely open, with just the three of them there.

“Have you never heard of a spirit guide?” he drawled. “I’m here to make sure you don’t stay trapped in here forever.”

“That could happen?!” Jo squeaked.

“That could happen,” he nodded.

“So what’s the deal? We kill you and we wake up?” Jess scooped up a random fork off a tray, pointing it at him, firmly. 

“I’m a spirit guide, Jess, you can’t kill me.” He sighed softly, shaking his head. “You have to find the key to waking up yourself. You must end the lies, and look beyond the shell to the creature within.”

Jo frowned, pondering that. “Well, there could be any kind of false walls, maybe a maze…”

“Or we could kill the liar,” Jess stepped forward, and drove her fork into the nurse’s chest.

“Jess!” the other woman gasped.

The nurse threw back his head, and for a moment, was not a young man, but a massive black cat, dripping on the floor as though he had just climbed out of the lake, then he seemed to ‘evaporate’, and disappeared in a flare of black light.

Abruptly, they were standing back in the same ward, but there was noise and movement, nurses walking around, other patients talking and chattering and complaining and breathing. Everything was brighter, louder, smelled sharper. Even the air tasted like something now, instead of like the perfectly clean sterilized taste of flower petals. It was as starkly different from the ward they had been in just moments before. 

Jo blinked. “…holy shit.”

Jess slowly lowered the fork, flushed. “Well then. Knew that guy was lying. He just had liar written all over his face.”

“Apparently he also had a footnote that said ‘stab me, I’m secretly a giant underwater cat thing’ written there too!” Jo yelped, then lowered her voice when a few people turned to look at her. “You know what I mean.”

Jess snorted. “Mishybizzy needs to catch up on modern times. Hunters these days are smarter than the pussies of the olden days.”   
  
[Part Eleven](http://sparrowshellcat.dreamwidth.org/41982.html)   


 

  



	11. sparrowshellcat | And Sing of Sweet Surrender - Part Eleven

  


  


__That the cleverest acting  
Was the lying by you  
Lying by you  
Lying by you

The murder of the college socialite had been completely gruesome, so naturally Jess and Jo had found themselves in Chicago, asking questions, quietly. They’d poked around her apartment and found absolutely nothing useful there, but they did manage to find that she had been attacked on her way home from work, so they headed to the bar where she had worked. 

Though everyone was willing to talk about the case, no one seemed to know anything. They just wanted to cry and pretend that she’d been their best friend ever.

Finally, thumping down in one of the booths, Jess offered the other a glass. “This bar might have been a bust.”

“I’m starting to think the same thing,” she sighed, sipping at her glass. “Thanks. So what’s the plan of action now? Go to her school, see if we can find out what happened to her?”

“I guess so,” she murmured.

“Damn. I’d been hoping we could start the hunt tonight… it’s been too long since the Mishibizhiw, I really want to kill something.”

“You were recovering, Jo.” She said firmly, crossing her arms on the edge of the table, considering her lover seriously. “There was no way we were going to hunt anything until the wounds were completely healed. So yeah, it’s been awhile, but I don’t want to rush into this thing if you’re not feeling well…”

“I’m feeling fine.” She said firmly. “I am fine. I totally understand, but I am fine.”

“I just don’t want to lose my girl,” she smiled softly, watching the other quietly, reaching over the table to squeeze Jo’s fingers. “I finally got you healthy and whole, I don’t want to lose out.”

She smiled softly, relaxing. “But it’s been a month.”

“I know. But if we ever run into your mother, would you rather tell her you ripped stitches open from a hunt while killing a demon, or would you rather tell her you took a month off and recovered properly beforehand?”

Jo groaned. “That’s fighting dirty.”

“But being smart,” she grinned, amused.              

“Yeah, yeah, sure…” looking around the small bar, Jo frowned slightly. “If the place was busier, we might have a little more luck with finding information. But there’s barely anyone here…”

“Yeah, I know. Okay, here’s the plan of attack.” Jess sat up a little straighter. “I’ll go left, you go right.”

She snorted, quirking a brow.

“I mean, I’m going that way, to flirt and chat and try and get information,” she pointed to the left. “You go to the right, and talk to them.”

“No flirting?” Jo asked, sweetly.

“Nope.” Jess grinned, standing, and bending over the table to kiss the other quickly. “Save the flirting for me.”

“You don’t own me,” she snickered, but winked at the taller woman, and slipped past her as she headed into the quiet bar, to the right, into the shadows on the other side of the bar, looking for someone to be a good target for talking to.

Jess smirked after her, watching the woman she was rapidly beginning to fall head over heels for walk into the shadows, then headed over to the pool tables, trying to strike up conversation.

Finally, pretty sure she’d gotten all the information she was going to, Jess set out to look for Jo. Maybe the other woman had found something hopefully more useful than the bare bone “facts” Jess had gleaned from the drunk off their asses guys that liked hanging out in the bar this time of night. Spotting her girl’s blonde head amongst the crowd, she headed over to her table. Jo was talking to someone, laughing. Maybe she’d found something.

“Hey babe,” she said quietly, resting her hand on Jo’s shoulder as she stepped up beside her. 

“Hey, Jess!” she beamed, smiling up at her with bright eyes. “I want you to meet someone…” she held her hand out to the other woman sitting at the table. The woman smiled an enigmatic, Mona Lisa smile, and Jess felt her blood run cold.

“This is Meg.”

Time seemed to slow down. Jess’ first instinct was to pull her gun out and start shooting, but the thus far limited experience she had had with demons thus far told her that this was a supremely bad idea. demons were fast – supernaturally so – and would absolutely be gone before she could have a chance to fire. Besides, she was pretty sure that bullets weren’t really going to bother her. (Hadn’t she been shot once with the whole werewolf thing, and that sure hadn’t fazed her.) An exorcism in the middle of a bar really didn’t seem like a good idea, either. After all, if Meg decided to kill people because she was pissed, she had piles of targets.

“We’ve met,” Meg said, casually, resting her chin in her hand, smirking at Jess.

“Oh, really?” Jo looked up, surprised, eyes flicking to Jess’ face. And then her expression changed, the slight bemusement shifting instantly into concern as she saw the expression on her lover’s face, alarmed. 

“It was you.” Jess said, without hesitation in her voice.

“Naturally,” the demon drawled, amused as she considered them both. “But we’re not really here to point fingers, are we?”

“No,” she said, voice cold. “We’re here to kill you.”

“Oh, to kill me,” Meg snorted, drawling.

“…we are?” Jo murmured.

“Oh yes, she’s definitely here to kill me,” Meg smirked, eyes crinkling as she grinned at Jo. “Careful with this one, Jo… I’m pretty sure she has a habit of killing all her girlfriends after she breaks up with them.”

“Girlfriend…?” the woman tensed. “This is the demon, isn’t it?”

Jess just nodded, squeezing Jo’s shoulder very tightly. 

“So anyway, very nice to see you, Jessie baby, but I’ve got bigger fish to fry in this town,” she drawled, stretching lazily. She seemed almost… casual about this whole thing. Like it was the most comfortable lazy thing in the world, to run into a pair of hunters when you were a demon planning on killing people – especially when one of the hunters was your ex. “So why don’t you run on now. You know you can’t do anything here anyway.”

Jess just squeezed Jo’s shoulder tighter, trying to resist the instinct to just throw herself over the table and pounding the other into pulp.

Jo just winced slightly.

“You know you don’t want to do this, Jess.” Meg said firmly. “Your day is coming, but believe me, babe… this isn’t it.”

“Let’s go,” she said quietly. 

Nodding, Jo stood, quickly, and together, the two hunters all but fled the bar.

An hour later, Jess’ hands were still trembling as she drove out of the city too quickly, hands shaking on the wheel even though she tried to maintain calm and act normal. It was hard, though, especially since the car was quiet, but extremely tense. 

Worst though, was the guilt. Crushing down like Atlas’ weight, Jess could only seem to focus on the knowledge that not only had she found what had killed that girl, she had knowingly left the killer unscathed. Sure, she’d done it to protect the innocent kids in that college bar that would’ve become collateral damage, but that didn’t actually make her feel much better.

“I trust you,” Jo murmured.

Blinking, she tore her eyes from the road ahead to glance at her lover. “Hm?”

“I trust you.” She said again. “I think you did the right thing. I trust your judgment, Jess.”

She snorted. “I left a demon. Well. Alive.”

“Yeah, well….” Jo shifted in her seat. “How many people in that bar would she have managed to, or attempted to kill before we would be able to send black smoke running?”

“Knowing Meg,” Jess murmured, “All of them.”

“You see?” Jo pointed out, spreading her palms out to Jess, almost beseeching her to listen. “You did the right thing. We know where she is now, we can lay a trap for her, and once we find her weaknesses, lure her into our little trap, then spring it on her. Blammo. Revenge is yours.”

Jess laughed weakly. “I thought we were done with revenge on demons?”

The other snorted. “And you call yourself a hunter?”

\----

 

_They say we can love who we can chose  
But what is love without lust  
Two hearts with accurate devotions  
What are feelings without emotions_  
 __  
I’m going in for the kill

Jess shifted in the massive bed that they had ended up with in the most recent in a long string of skeezy motels. This one had the massive bed that most of the others didn’t, but unfortunately, the rest of the room didn’t really live up to the reputation of the bed – it filled almost the entire place. They had to turn sideways to get from the bed to the bathroom door, and even then, the door didn’t open the whole way.

Still, the massive, comfortable bed was a bonus, as was the little rusty metal box on the headboard. The one that Jo had been steadily feeding quarters into for the last couple hours.

So with the ceiling mounted tv playing shit television, they lay side by side in the massive bed, legs and arms just barely touching as the mattress shifted slightly under them, vibrating nicely. It was supposed to work every knot out of their muscles, and if Jess had her way, they’d sleep in beds like this forever. It did seem to be slowly working the kinks out, though last time she’d gone to the bathroom, she’d been surprised to notice that some of her body still felt like it was faintly vibrating. Odd.

“Mmm,” she sighed softly as the vibrating stopped, and Jo sat up to dig in her pockets again. “Why are we watching this?”

“Because watching rebellious teenagers scream ‘you don’t know me, you don’t know me’ requires no actual thinking, and neither of us is really in the mood for thinking. Well, I’m not, anyway,” Jo snorted, glancing at Jess. “I kinda assumed you didn’t want to either, since you’re the one who put Maury on in the first place.”

“I didn’t know it was a marathon,” she muttered, smirking slightly.

“It’s not technically a marathon…” Jo pointed out, dropping another quarter in the machine, and twisting the little crank. Instantly, the mattress started vibrating again, and she sighed, happily. “It’s episodes of Maury and Jerry Springer, put back to back, over and over again. So it’s a ‘fake talk show’ marathon.”

“Ah. Thank you so kindly for correcting me,” Jess drawled, smirking up at Jo.

“Thank you, milady,” she laughed, reaching down to brush the other’s loose curls carefully behind her ear. The room was lit only by the television and the dim glow of the streetlights outside falling through the blinds. It was slatted when it fell finally on them, light cut into sharp slices by the darkness, making every movement almost mysterious. “I feel like we’re in a film noir movie.”

“Mmm. Am I the private eye, then, or am I the hussy poured into her dress who wants to hire you?” Jess asked, smiling softly.

“You’re definitely the hussy,” Jo grinned, amused by the very idea. “I’m the private eye, the private dick.”

“Dick?”

She snorted. “Not dick dick. I mean, like… detective. That’s what they called them in those old film noir movies. Private dicks.”

“Sure,” Jess smirked.

“And you, my lovely lady…” Jo laughed, leaning over Jess to press her lips gently to hers. “Are my street smart, world weary brilliant hussy, with legs that go up to forever, and curves so curvy that I wish I was a car on your road, just so I could ride them all the way down.” She kissed her again. “They pour you into your dress, and you get to saunter into the room and poke me in the chest with the toe of your gorgeously dangerous stilettos, but even though you pretend to be all vulnerable and badass, you are either the secret villain of the story who is setting me up to fall, or you’re secretly just putting up a front and trying to seem tougher than you are because you are secretly scared, and need me, the private eye, to run in and save you.”

“With your dick.” She laughed.

“No dicks.” The other laughed, shaking her head. “Not even one.”

“Good. I might be a little freaked out if there was.” Jess rolled up and over, knocking Jo back onto the vibrating bed, leaning over her, loose golden curls cascading down around her head like a strawberry scented curtain. A car drove past their motel, and the headlights skimmed across the wall, through their blinds, sliding over Jess slowly, starting at her head, then down to her bare feet before fading off into the distance.

“You look like an angel,” Jo murmured, slightly breathless.

“Back from the dead, yes. Angel, no.” Jess murmured, and bent to kiss her lover, softly, fingers slipping to begin slowly unbuttoning the other’s blue plaid shirt. 

They had played around, a little. Kissing had become a staple of their daily life, and sometimes it had shifted beyond just kissing to the point where they were both left trembling and breathless. They slept together, mostly naked, they had fleetingly touched each other, but… it had almost been like a line, that both of them wasn’t entirely comfortable crossing. It wasn’t because neither of them wanted it. Maybe it was because both of them wanted it too much, and they were afraid of ruining it if they finally took that plunge.

But neither hesitated now, though the gentleness with which Jess unbuttoned Jo’s shirt, and gently pushed it off her shoulders was almost painstakingly slow.

Just because something is not rushed does not mean that it is not urgent.

Fingers skimming just gently over the other’s smooth skin, Jess unhooked the two little metal hooks at the front of Jo’s bra. She’d asked, once, why the other woman wore front hook bras, and Jo had admitted, while pitching pillows at her giggling companion, that she’d just never managed to get the hang of the back attaching kind. She ‘felt like a chicken, with her arms stuck behind her, like that’, and right now, as Jess gently slid the bra off of her, without Jo ever lifting off the bed, she had to say that she wasn’t going to complain.

“Mmm… now I feel like this is sorta uneven,” Jo smiled up at Jess, shifting slightly on the bed. 

“I’m admiring,” Jess breathed, bending to press gently, slightly open mouthed kisses against the other woman’s skin, moving down her collarbone, kissing both of her breasts, gently, enjoying the hitch in Jo’s breath when she brushed her lips against the other woman’s taut nipples. Gently, she licked at them, watching the other’s face as she arched up into the gentle mouth.

“Fuck, Jess…” Jo murmured, fingers tangling in the other’s hair.

“Mmm….” She murmured, licking her fingertips and rolling Jo’s nipples gently in her damp fingers, kissing her collarbone again, loving her soft, baby smooth skin. 

“Jess… please…” the other’s fingers scrabbled at her shirt slightly, struggling with the buttons at their awkward angle, trying to tug the shirt, butter soft and smooth denim that had been washed until it barely felt of looked like the crisp blue it had once been, off of Jess’ shoulders. The little silver buttons, each stamped with a flower, like trying to add femininity to something that was the antithesis of girly, slipped out of the buttonholes, and she finally shoved the collar off of Jess’ shoulders. “Please. Take it off.”

“Yes’m,” she drawled, and sat back, tugging her own shirt off, and letting it drop over the side of the bed, before reaching back behind her to carefully unhook her bra, letting it follow the shirt.

Jo squirmed to sit up, cupping the other woman’s breasts, callused fingers brushing over the smooth, usually untouched skin, warmed by the confinement of the fabric, and bent to blow, gently, on them. Jess gasped and shivered, watching in fascination as the other woman licked her lips, then wet each nipple with her tongue. Little pink tongue darting out of her saliva glistened lips, Jo then blew on the other’s chest.

Jess keened, shivering at the sensation. Hot and cold, cold and hot… tingles were squirming up and down her spine in a most delicious way.

Laughing softly, she murmured, “Thought you might like that.”

“Mmm, I do,” Jess tugged Jo up again so that she could kiss the other woman properly, fingers looped in the other’s belt loops as she held her close, chest to chest, breast to breast, then popped the button on the other’s jeans, and shoved them down. “But I want something else even more, and that involves you being quite naked.”

“Do I at least get you naked in the deal?” Jo murmured, following the other’s example.

“Mmm, I think we can arrange that,” she breathed into the other’s mouth, squirming the denim down the other’s hips, trying to get the jeans off. “In fact, I think I’d even like that.”

“Then it’s a deal,” she laughed softly, though she pushed Jess’ boy cut underwear off along with her jeans, idly stroking her fingertips over the other’s smooth skin. “You shaved?”

“I do on a regular basis,” Jess laughed. “Gotta maintain.”

“Yeah… noticed it gets itchy,” Jo muttered, and when her lover laughed at the thought, she smacked Jess’ ass. “Now now, naughty little minx… you’re supposed to be the seductive hussy with legs that go into outer space, remember?”

“Mmm, I do remember something about that,” Jess grinned, and pushed Jo back into the pillows. 

The younger woman landed with an ‘oof’, watching as the other dug in her jeans for a moment, understanding finally when Jess leaned up to put a quarter in the magic fingers machine. The bed began to vibrate a moment later, and she moaned softly, fingers reaching up to stroke gently over every inch of Jess’ skin exposed to her touch. “Mmm… I like where this is going already.”

“You’re going to love where it goes next even better, then,” Jess murmured, bending to kiss Jo’s stomach, then kissed the elastic waistband of her green cotton briefs. “Mmm. You look so edible like this.”

“You got that line from a porno,” Jo drawled, but her grin didn’t abate in the slightest.

“And?” she smirked slightly, stroking the other woman’s stomach. She mouthed softly at the other woman’s lips through the green cotton panties, grinning when Jo bucked. “Some of the best lines are from pornos.”

“Oh,” Jo murmured, bucking slightly. “This from a porno?”

“Mmm… maybe,” she drawled, licking at the cotton, which was growing swiftly damp. “Always kinda wanted to try it, anyway.”

“Mmm… wouldn’t… wouldn’t it be better if I was actually naked?” Jo murmured.

“Maybe.” Jess grinned, nipping gently at the other’s labia through the cotton, creating a rub of cotton on skin, and the other woman bucked, gasping. “But maybe the panties are just what we need to make it amazing. Because you’re making these beautiful little gasping sounds…”

“Less talking, more sexing,” she panted, fingers tangled in the other woman’s hair, pushing her down into her crotch again.

Snickering softly, Jess nipped at the other’s labia lips through the fabric again. 

Jo groaned, and murmured, “Please…”

“Mmm, yes?” she purred, slipping her fingers into the hem of the other’s underwear, squirming them down her hips and then down her thighs. She shifted slightly, kissing the other’s soft skin, kissing her way down her hip, then her right leg, following the panties down. Finally, she tugged them right off of Jo, and playfully kissed the top of the other’s bare foot.

“Ew,” Jo giggled, amused. “You kissed my foot.”

“It’s a very nice foot,” Jess laughed, tickling the other’s toes, slightly. “All pretty and clean.”

“You don’t have a foot fetish, do you?” she smirked.

“Nope, but your feet would be the ones that would make me have one,” she snickered, still tickling gently. “You have very nice feet.”

“Mmm. Thank you. Now fuck me.”

Jess barked in laughter, and crawled up the other’s body, bending to kiss Jo gently, softly. It was a soft, gentle kiss, all kinds of gentle adoration and sweetness, until Jo gasped into it, spine arching. Smirking into the kiss, Jess nipped at the other woman’s lower lip, slowly sliding her index deeper into the other, stroking gently.

“Oh god, Jess…” the other keened, arching up harder, toes curling.

“Mmm, it’s only gonna get better, babe.”

\----

 

There was a sharp knock on the door, and Jude yelped, burying her head under the pillows, wincing. The door opened anyway, and Sera stepped into the dark bedroom. Her shoes crunching down on several plastic pop bottles and clinking against glass, she marched across the room, and jerked the curtains open, late morning sunlight pouring into the room, scattering the shadows. The room was a complete mess, especially now that the light was spilling into it.

“Wake up, Jude,” Sera said sharply, kicking the bed frame. “Get out of the goddamn bed, and get up.”

Groaning softly, she slowly lifted the pillow that had been over her head, blinking blearily up at the other woman, eyes narrowed. “M’awake… what is it?”

The other hesitated, her self-righteous anger waylaid slightly. “Shit, are you all right? You look like you went on a bender with Drain-o.”

“I feel like I went on a bender with Drain-o,” Jude groaned softly, sitting up.

“Well, that was stupid, then, you fruitcake,” Sera kicked the bed again, grumpily, making the other woman yelp. “How did you know?!”

“How did I know what?”

“About Meg! About the demons! About – about Meg setting a trap for Sam and Dean!” she howled, kicking the bed again, clearly vindictively. “About it being in Chicago, about the shadow demons… about everything!”

“I don’t know anything!” she wailed, eyes squeezed tightly shut. “What are you talking about?!”

“Sing of Sweet Surrender!” 

“Huh?”

“Your fanfiction, hello, the one you’ve been working on for months now?!” Sera crossed her arms, angrily, glowering at her. “The one based on the books that I publish, hello, you know! Seriously, did you kill all of your brain cells last night?!”

“Apparently,” she murmured, and sat up, rubbing at her forehead. “What’s wrong with my fanfiction now?”

She thwapped her in the head with a book, and Jude yelped, toppling. “The book!”

“Book?” she picked up the paperback, blinking at it. “Shadow. I – I don’t recognize this book.”

“You’ve read it, haven’t you? You snuck it out of my office, and you read it!”

“What?” Jude gaped at her best friend, flicking through the book. “Meg is in this – you published this! You published a book and I didn’t even read it! I’m the editor! Why is this book published when I haven’t even read it?!”

“I had someone else do it,” Sera muttered, arms crossed, watching her.

“What?!”

“You were getting obsessed! You were getting wrapped further and further into this stupid fanfiction you’re writing, and – and getting drunk on a regular basis and writing all fucking night! I was worried! I thought maybe if you didn’t read the newest book, not even to edit it, then you might be able to get some sleep, maybe the writing would calm down, but – you knew anyway!”

“Knew what anyway?!”

“Meg! Killed a college girl! Hung out in a bar waiting for Sam and Dean!”

Jude paled slightly, blinking at the pages of the book. “…that sounds like that chapter where Jess and Jo are in the bar and Meg says… there are bigger fish to fry…”

“You think?!”

“….that is so weird,” she murmured.

“Weird is an understatement! Weird is for little oddities, not for massive huge things like this! For god’s sake, Jude, now you’re writing about things in the books that haven’t been in the books yet, and – god, you wrote about Meg before she was even in the books, but I thought maybe that was a weird coincidence or something, but… this is more than just a weird coincidence! You copied plot! Only it wasn’t copied because – what did you think of the guest star in this book?” she asked, abruptly, trying to catch her still sleepy, hung over, headachy friend off guard.

“There’s a guest star in this book?” she blinked, blearily, flipping through it. “Who?”

“…their father,” she muttered, watching her.

Jude squealed, flipping immediately to the first page, all but writing in the bed. “Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god, really, John has finally shown up?! Eeee, we’ve been waiting for John to show up since book one, and this is book sixteen, finally….”

“Oi!” Sera tried to snatch the book away from her.

“No way! Mine!” she squawked, alarmed, ducking back. “No way, my turn to read! You cheated me out of seeing in manuscript form, you gotta let me read it!”

She frowned, displeased. “…fine.”

“Don’t deny me this,” she pouted slightly, holding tightly onto the book. “It’s my favourite thing ever.”

“But it’s just not healthy…”

“Oi! You’re the publisher! You should be happy to have fanatical fans!”

“Oh, believe me, I am, but I don’t live with most of Carver Edlund’s maniacal fans,” she muttered, then sighed heavily, and sat on the edge of Jude’s bed. After all, as frustrated as she was, she was her best friend. And honestly, though the fanatical writing of the fanfiction kind of worried her, and scared her a lot, she kind of was the book’s biggest fan. That was why she published them. “Mostly… I’m kinda freaked out by the fact that you’re writing about things before they happen in the books.”

“Maybe I’m psychic,” Jude grinned, wriggling her eyebrows mischievously as she reached over to grab her glasses, sliding them on. “Me ‘n Carver Edlund, we got a psychic connection.”

Sera snorted. “There is no way you could link up with his genius.”

“Yeah, that’s true…” she sighed softly, wistfully.

“Mmm. He’s such a brilliant man,” she sighed. “A brilliant author… a little unrefined, but brilliant, and so clever…”

“It’s like outsider art!” Jude chirped.

“Dork.” Sera sighed, and leaned on the other’s shoulder, sighing softly.

Jude slyly flipped the page, reading quietly.

“You promise you didn’t steal the manuscript from my office?” she murmured, quietly. 

“I wouldn’t do that to you, Sera,” she looked up, closing the book and setting it on the bed again, though definitely out of her friend’s reach. “You’re my best friend. I respect your privacy a hell of a lot more than that. If I really wanted to get one of the new manuscripts, I would trust you to hand them over, since you pay me to do that, and last I checked, I hadn’t been fired.”

She sighed. “I am never going to live that down, am I?”

“Nope. Never. I’m pissed about that. There needs to be continuity in these books, and that means continuity in the editing, too.” Reaching over to scoop up the novel, Jude brandished it at her. “I’ve read three pages now, and I’ve already found a typo.”

“What?! No way!” she grabbed at the book.

“No!” Jude tugged Shadows away from her again, shaking her head quickly. “I’ll show it to you after I’m done reading it, thank you very much. I want to know what happens.”

She sighed, heavily, flopping back on the bed. Nose crinkling, she tugged a crumpled chip bag out from under her back, and dropped it sort of delicately on the floor. “Fine. Read the book, enjoy the book… it’s really good, actually. I love the twist, at the end, when – “

“Ah! No spoiling!” she squealed, almost tackling her best friend. “None of that!”

Sera snorted. “You really haven’t read it, have you?”

“No, of course not. I write about Jess, and apparently her girlfriend, not about…” Jude hesitated suddenly, considering something. “Wait, you didn’t give me the book manuscript… I didn’t give you the last few chapters of my fanfic, either, because you were complaining about them! How the hell did you get a hold of my story?!”

“You put it on your livejournal, Jude. We’ve had this conversation already, like a month ago. You put it on your stupid livejournal with your stupid name with the ‘exes’ and your livejournal is on my friend’s list, dork.” 

“Oh, good point,” she flushed, scratching at the back of her neck. “…I like my username.”

“There are exes in it.”

“Other people wanted to use lines from ‘Hey Jude’, too, okay?” She groaned softly, running her hand through her hair. “I’m not the only person to want to use Beatles lyrics in my username, and it’s a popular song.” 

“Yeah… I know, I know,” Sera snickered, ruffling Jude’s hair. “Your own damn fault for being named Jude, I guess. Well. Judith. Jude. Whatever. Also, for the love of god, can you take a shower?”

“Why?” Jude blinked.

“Because you’re a greasy mess!” she snorted, and stood. “So shower. And read.”

“Thanks,” Jude grinned, settling back in the bed, tugging her glasses back off again, because she read her novels without glasses, being so far sighted that books being close up meant she could see things close up easier without them. 

“And… lay off the fanfiction a little?” Sera murmured, pausing in the doorway.

She hesitated. “…I’ll see what I can do.”

She nodded, and slipped out of the room, knowing full well that her best friend had just lied to her, and that the writing would continue.

\----

 

__I must go on standing  
You can’t break that which isn’t yours  
I must go on standing  
I’m not my own, it’s not my choice

“Wake up!”

Jess bolted up, gasping, chest heaving as she gaped at Jo, eyes wide and confused. “Wh-what?”

“You were screaming,” she said softly, cupping the other’s jaw, considering her. “Dreaming about hell again?”

“No… no.” shifting up, she rubbed her forehead, confused. Trying to remember what she had been dreaming about was sort of confusing and bewildered, but she knew that she had not been dreaming about hell. She remembered her dreams of hell, she always did, because they were not dreams but relived memories, drilled into her brain. It took a few moments of thinking until a flash of memory slipped into her consciousness again, and Jess gagged.

“Woah!” Jo scrambled to rub the other woman’s back, trying to soothe her. “What happened?!”

Staggering out of the back seat of the car, where they had both been crunched into the narrow space, Jess bent double over the rough scrub brush, and puked everything that was left from last night’s take out burgers.

Nose crinkling, the other woman slipped out of the backseat of the car, and padded over to stand beside the sick woman, stroking her back.

Fairly sobbing with pain and misery, Jess bent, bracing her forearms on her thighs, biting hard into her lower lip. Her stomach still churned, struggling to upset again, but she fought to hold the reaction down, to be calm and still. The last thing she wanted was to get ill again – she had never really been much of a fan anyway, and out here in the fields at the edge of a beach, it wasn’t even like they really had anywhere to go after here in order for her to clean up, either. This was it. 

“I take it you remembered,” Jo murmured.

Jess remembered. She remembered dreaming that she was back in her apartment, the one she had shared with Sam. She had been lying on their big bed, warm and comfortable, stretched out amongst the blankets as though she’d been planning a decadent weekend of sleeping. And then, within the dream, she had noticed that it seemed to be raining inside, which made no sense, so she looked up. She was expecting to see clouds and rain, which happened sometimes in dreams, which was strange enough, but there was a ceiling still. And on the ceiling was Joanna Beth Harvelle, pinned to the ceiling, looking down at her in horror as the ‘rain’ sprinkled down on her, actually the blood from her lover’s belly.

And that had been when Jess had screamed.

“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked softly. 

Jess winced. “No. No, absolutely not. Sorry, I don’t want to, I – I really don’t want to talk about it. I’m sorry.”

“Okay,” she murmured, flushed. 

“It’s not because…” she stood slowly, wiping at her mouth, wincing slightly. “It’s not because of you, Jo. You know I will do whatever you want. I just… this is something I don’t really want to rehash.”

“Yeah, I know.” She murmured. “I get it.”

Jess groaned, tugging the other slightly closer, holding the other woman against her chest, gently, hugging her against her chest. “M’sorry, babe.”

“It’s okay.” She murmured, arms loosely looped around the base of the other’s spine, holding her. 

“We’re dysfunctionally awesome,” Jess murmured, amused.

She snorted.

“So, um… sorry about the screaming thing.”

“Hey, could be worse,” she drawled, slowly stroking the other’s lower back, under the bottom hem of her tank top, stroking the skin. “You could compulsively try to eat people’s skin in your sleep or something.”

Jess barked in laughter, shaking her head. “No, no skin munching instincts.”

“Good.” Jo kissed the other’s jaw. 

“Mmm. So now that the drama after school special is over…” she stretched slightly, and straightened up, still wrapped in the other woman’s arms. “I hear there’s a bridge we’re supposed to be investigating.”

“Right, the crybaby bridge,” Jo murmured, softly, shaking her head. 

Jess kissed the other woman’s brow, then slipped out of the other’s arms, heading to the car again, feeling sort of hollow and cold.

Jo sighed, and followed, quietly.

She knew that she was distancing herself from her lover, and she probably shouldn’t, but she almost couldn’t help it. Every fibre of Jess’ being wanted to throw herself back into her lover’s arms, maybe crawl back into the warm little cave that they’d set up in the backseat with a car blanket and a couple jackets, and go back to sleep with Jo wrapped in her arms. That was all she wanted. 

But every time she looked up and spotted the other blond, a flash of the nightmare flicked behind her eyes, and she couldn’t stop the unbidden images.

Keening, Jess closed her eyes tightly. Finally, she dug into the trunk, digging in her duffel bag, finding a fresh pair of jeans and a plaid shirt. She glanced to make sure there was no road or other cars close by, then tugged off what she was currently wearing, and tugged on her clothes, getting ready to go. Maybe killing something, or slaying something, that would make her feel better.

“Hungry?” 

Jess jumped, gasping in surprise. She hadn’t expected her lover to be standing right beside the trunk, half leaning under the trunk lid with her. She offered the crinkly package of oreo cookies, and sighing softly, Jess took several of the cookies out of the package, crunching on one of them. “Thanks.”

“Mmhmm,” she nodded, considering her. 

“Okay, seriously, feeling like a bug right now…” Jess frowned slightly. “You’re staring me down.”

“I’m thinking,” Jo smirked, then turned to head back to the front of the car again.

She sighed softly, shaking her head, then followed, still crunching. The flavor of the cookies was slightly tainted by the puke flavor, but at least they were slowly starting to wash it out. Slipping into the driver’s seat, she murmured, “Ready to go?”

“Mmmhmm. Let’s go.”   
  
  
[Part Twelve](http://sparrowshellcat.dreamwidth.org/42063.html)

 

  



	12. sparrowshellcat | And Sing of Sweet Surrender - Part Twelve

  


 

  


__Hundred years, hundred more  
Someday we may see a  
Woman king, sword in hand  
Swing at some evil and bleed

“ _Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus_.”

The young girl screamed, almost arching up off the bed, and Jo hissed as she struggled to hold her down. Her knee was planted firmly on the centre of the little girl’s chest, and while she had complained originally that she didn’t want to do that for fear that she might injure her, one or two displays of the girl’s vicious power had her climbing up on the bed, pinning her down.

Jess swallowed, and shifted the Daemonology book in her arms, carefully. She had her finger under the lines she was reading – not because she had forgotten the exorcism, but mostly because she was scared that she’d start reading the wrong line.

In the corner, the child’s mother cowered, crying softly. They’d told her to leave, but she refused.

Her baby girl, after all, had become a black eyed creature that shrieked and burned when they spilled holy water on her.

“ _Omnis satanic potestas, omnis incursion_ ,” Jess continued, clutching the book tightly.

“Liar!” the little girl screamed, and with a massive push, threw Jo straight off of her, slamming her against the far wall. Jo cried out, gasping as she was pinned to the wall by some unseen force, feet kicking at the air as she struggled to get down.

Bloody nightmares raced through Jess’ head, and she snarled, ripping the cap off of her bottle of holy water, splashing it on the little girl, shrieking, “ _Christo, Christo, Christo_!”

Yes, the demon screamed and writhed and twisted the little baby’s body into strange forms as it railed against the confines, against the indignity of being set upon by some mere human, but there was no sense of satisfaction to the hiss and sizzle of the water, to the screams. The mother screamed in sympathetic agony in the corner, wringing her hands, but Jess could only focus on the deep and heart wrenching need to protect Jo from her fate at the hands of the demon. She didn’t even care about freeing the girl, not really. She needed to free her lover.

Stalking closer to the bed, she kept flicking the water on her, over and over, watching with a sort of cold detachment as the girl’s head flicked from side to side, shrieking. “ _Infernalis adversarii_ ,” she continued, loudly. She was saying it from memory, even though she never really had managed to memorize it before. “ _Omnis legio, omnis congregation et secta diabolica_!”

The demon reared its little head, teeth bared, eyes black. “So long as you live, her life will be suffering.”

Jess hesitated.

Taking advantage of the moment of hesitation, the demon ripped her arms free of the ropes she had been bound to the bed by. She was trapped on the bed by the Solomon’s circle that Jo had painstakingly drawn on the floor underneath the bed, but that didn’t mean she was helpless, or powerless, and the little girl’s fingers curled like claws towards Jess, and she was hauled forward and onto the bed, into that little circular prison cell.

The demon pinned her to the mattress as she snarled at her, saliva flecked teeth bared, drool running down her chin like a rabid dog. “You are now and will always be the cause of Jo Harvelle’s suffering and pain, Jess. You draw us to you like bees to honey… we want to finish what he started.”

She shuddered, and snarled, “That’s not true.”

“It is…” she purred, a deep, sibilant and snake like hiss. “We look at you, and we can see that you were on our rack, and you slipped through our fingers, slipped right away from us, and we need to take you home, Jess, to rip you to pieces and corrupt that sweet little soul until you become one of us.” She grinned, drawing in a breath that seemed to make the demon’s whole ribcage rattle. “Oooh… how I’d like to slice you into little bite sized pieces and feed you to my dogs…”

“ _Ergo draco maledicte_ ,” Jess hissed, starting to recite the next verse of the exorcism, not surprised when the demon’s reaction was to press those tiny toddler hands into her throat, trying to crush her voice. “ _Et omnis legio diabolica adjuramus te…”_ she whispered, sparse trace of voice rasping.

“And we will torture you,” the demon promised, little nails digging into her skin. “You see, once you go to hell, you belong to us. You got out by chance last time. When you come back… we’re going to put our hooks in you so tight that you’ll never get free. They could send the whole host of heaven this time, and you’ll never get out. But until that day…” she growled, though it wasn’t of anger, but almost sounded delighted, pleased. “Until then, we will dog your heels, we will follow you every step of your miserable little life, and at every turn, we will destroy anything and everything that you love.”

“ _Cessa dec-dec-decipere humanas cr-creaturas_ …” she rasped.

“You… you are signing her death warrant, little one.” The demon grinned, leaning down to murmur the words in Jess’ ear, so that the others in the room could not hear. “Because of you, Jo is damned.”

“ _Eisque – eisque aeternae Perditionis_ …” Jess took a deep breath, as deep as she could with the little fingers crushing her windpipe. The air around her seemed to be swimming, with little black spots floating about and then starting to congregate right around the edges of her vision, as though little black balls of soot were coming in to surround her. “… _venenum propinare_.”

The little girl’s head was abruptly thrown back, and she howled as black smoke erupted from her mouth like a swarm of bees. 

It filled the air for a moment, hovering over them all, then it shot out through the open window, and the little toddler began to scream, high pitched terrified wails of panic and terror. 

Jess slumped back on the bed, boneless, as the mother raced forward to scoop up her child, sobbing as she held her close. A moment later, the screaming still running over their heads, Jo crawled onto the bed, gentle soft fingertips brushing over Jess’ bloody and bruised neck, assessing the damage. “It’s okay, Jess, it’s okay,” she promised.

“No,” she rasped. “S’not.”

\----

 

_ Who's gonna answer  
These profanity prayers? _

Feeling pretty stupid, like she was doing something wrong or something… perverse, Jess slipped into the massive Catholic cathedral, looking around, quietly. 

It wasn’t that she had never been in one before, or that she didn’t recognize, to an extent, the power of what one might find there. After all, she was in the habit of whipping holy water at demons, of reciting Latin scriptures written by long dead Catholic priests to kick the creatures out of their current shells. Hell, she had blessed metals around her neck, right now. She saw the strength in a lot of things that could be found here. 

But… it was just that this seemed almost sacred, a sort of sacrosanct thing that it was wrong for her to breach into.

Taking a deep breath, she slipped through the rows, hugging herself slightly.

The cathedral was not one of the bigger or most amazing ones in the city, but she had wanted one big enough to get lost in, and small enough that she wouldn’t have to worry about there being crowds. She didn’t want crowds, she wanted a quiet area to think, to focus. It was a beautiful place, though, with large wooden benches, golden paintings, and massive brightly coloured stained glass windows behind the huge pipe organ. Slipping into one of the benches, about a third away from the front of the sanctuary, she sat, gnawing on her lip.

Focusing on the massive centre panel of the stained glass window, she swallowed, quietly considering it. 

A man in a white toga, flowing golden locks, and massive white wings stood on a stone field, holding a sword over half the size of him. There was a silver circle behind his golden head, forming a halo, and he was stepping on the head of a massive snake, crushing it under his saddled foot.

“Angels don’t look like that,” Jo had said once, quietly, when they’d stepped into another church over a month ago, to get more holy water. “This is a namby pamby girly version of an angel… I mean, really, he looks like a shampoo commercial model with a sword. Real angels – well, I mean, if you believe in them, but we’re talking angels from the Bible and stuff – they were fucking scary. All smiting and wrath and eight million eyeballs and giant wheels with eyes on them and creatures with four or five heads, like lions and stuff. They were terrifying, I would never ever want to face them, and these little Hallmark holiday card angels wouldn’t last thirty seconds with a real angel.”

And yeah, it was a bit of a pansy fluffy winged angel, but Jess figured that if she was looking for divine guidance, maybe it didn’t matter how canonically accurate the angel was.

Slipping off the smooth, varnished bench, she knelt on the low cushioned bench on the floor, and folded her hands on the back of the bench in front of her. She felt profane now, almost like her even attempting to do this was somehow sullying the church, but she had to do something.

Bending to set her forehead on her folded hands, Jess swallowed.

“Um.”

It wasn’t that Jess had never been to church in her life before – she went on Easter and Christmas with her grandmother. But it wasn’t something she had done on a regular basis, and honestly, it had never really been something she’d sought out, either, so now that she was kneeling there, faced with the prospect of trying to find some direction in her life from what she hoped was some kind of divine figure, she had no idea what to do next.

“Dear God?” she tried, glancing up at the stained glass window again. “Or dear angels, or dear Jesus, or… I don’t know who I’m supposed to… direct this to. Or how.”

The sense of feeling really, really stupid was starting to come back. Quickly.

“Okay. Dear God. As you… probably know… I died last September.” Jess closed her eyes tightly, murmuring her words barely above audible. “And I went to hell, which I guess means I wasn’t one of your chosen people, or whatever it means, when I go to hell. So I died, and I went to hell. And… well, I guess you made hell, so you probably know what happened next.”

She shifted slightly on the little padded bench, squeezing her hands so tightly that her knuckles were white. 

“And then… I was alive again. And I don’t know how. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I’m glad to be alive. But I don’t know why I am, and it – it doesn’t really make sense.”

Jess unwrapped her bandaged wrist, hesitating, looking down at the burned in scar fingerprints, then murmured, “These are the only sign I’ve got, and I don’t even know what they are or what they mean, so they do me no good. I mean, you probably know… you probably have since before it happened, but that’s because… well, because you’re God, and I’m just a girl. A girl who isn’t dead, even though she doesn’t know why. I just…”

“The demons keeps taunting me, God. They keep saying that they’re going to get me back in hell, and that – that I won’t be able to stay out here long, and that they can sense me coming. And I believe it, from the amount of demons I’ve had to face, I can really believe it!”

“But what scares me, God,” she swallowed, “What scares me is that they are now picking on Jo. They’re threatening to get her too. They said – that one demon said that if I stay with Jo, they’ll torture her too.”

Pressing her forehead into the smooth wood of the back of the pew ahead of hers, Jess sat in silence for several long minutes, quietly considering what this meant, trembling slightly. She was having a hard time getting her thoughts formed into words, which was why she had really come to this church in the first place. She had figured that it would be easier to force words and thoughts into a form if she spoke it out to God, but thus far, it didn’t seem to be making a difference.

“I mean, way I hear it, you’re not really into the whole… Jo and I being an item thing anyway, but… I figure… love is love, right?”

“So I was thinking, maybe…” she cleared her throat. “You could send me an angel. Or even just a sign. To say ‘yes, it’s your fault that Jo is going to suffer, because you are a twisted thing from out of hell’, or ‘no, the demons are doing their usual lying thing and its all bullshit’. That would – that’s what I need,” she murmured, keening softly. “Please?”

Silence met her request, and she closed her eyes, frustrated.

Slipping slowly out of the pew, Jess stumbled down the row, unseeing and frustrated, feeling hollow. She didn’t really know what she’d expected, if she’d really expected to be able to have an immediate response, a bolt of lightning, a heavenly glowing messenger stepped down to impart information on her. Still, she had hoped for something. Anything.

Pausing in the foyer, she lit one of the long taper matches in the bin, and lit one of the small, red candles. 

Watching it burn for a moment, a lightly moving hopeful little flame, Jess turned abruptly and let the church, feeling almost more cold and disappointed than she had when she had first stepped into the building.

\----

 

__Power seething  
Really reeling  
Reaching out for you  
Am I demon?  
Need to know

Casting the flashlight over the grassy fields, Jess followed Jo as they padded through the still spring fresh green grass, searching for bare patches. The ground had scatterings of a late snowfall between the bright green spires of six or seven inch high grass. It was very late, seasonally, but not unheard of in Minnesota. 

“I dunno,” Jo called back, “I still think that one guy deserved it.”

“I’m starting to think you’re right,” Jess snickered, shaking her head. “Except that we’re hunters. Aren’t we supposed to be unbiased?”

“What do you think we are, judges? There is no rule that hunters need to be unbiased.” She jumped over a small stream that was running through the field, glancing back at Jess. “Hunters do stupid shit all the time. A lot of stupid shit. Because we have these serious grudges sometimes, and serious vendettas. There are hunters who only hunt one single kind of thing, because they really hate them… I know this one guy, Gordon. When he was a kid, his sister was kidnapped by vampires.”

“You’re kidding,” Jess blinked, clambering up out of the ditch the stream ran through. 

“Nope. Kidnapped, right out of her bed. And he went out, and for years, he became obsessed with the idea of hunting down the pack of vampires that had presumably nommed on his sister, and would just wholesale wipe out whole nests. He finally found the right ones – and found that his sister had been turned into a vampire.”

She whistled, low. “I guess that must have changed his opinion on vampires, if he had to deal with the fact that his sister was one, now.”

“Not a chance.” Jo glanced back at Jess again. “He killed her.”

“….what?”

“He killed her. Exactly as if she was any other vampire, he went, ‘well, this is my job now’, and cut her head off.”

“That’s fucking terrible!” Jess gasped, horrified.

“A lot of hunters see the world in black and white,” she shrugged. “Either you’re human and therefore one of us, or you’re not, and therefore you should be killed.”

“…shit.” She shook her head. “But I mean… how black and white does it get? I mean, I was killed by a demon, and spent hard time in hell… would the fact that I came back from hell make a difference to guys like that?”

“You could sort of be seen as a type of undead, I guess, because you woke up alive in your coffin after having been dead for four days….” The other considered that, clambering over a large fallen log, pausing to check the other side of it for bare patches in the grass. “To guys like Gordon… you’d be huntable. They just wouldn’t know what to classify you as, so you’re clearly not human, and if you’re not human….” She let the end of the statement hang for a moment. “Just… I wouldn’t advise going into a hunter bar and broadcasting who you are or what happened to you until you know that everyone there trusts you completely.”

“Broadcast who I am?” she frowned. “Like, in terms of my name?”

“You rose from your grave, Jess.” Jo turned to face her for a moment, deadly serious. “Some hunter, somewhere, is going to have noticed that your grave was empty. That’s what we do. And they could have told their closest friend, so if you happen to have had the name ‘Jessica Moore’ on your tombstone, then yeah. Hunters might know that you are technically ‘undead’. There is probably some hunter out there with a bullet with your name on it already, waiting.”

She swallowed, frowning as she considered that.

“Hey, lighten up… the chances he’ll find you are pretty much slim to nil.”

“Not helping,” Jess murmured, climbing over that log as well.

Jo reached back to squeeze her hand, comfortingly, then forged on ahead through the snowy grass. “As far as I’m concerned, though, there is room in the hunter views for greys. And there are a lot of shades of grey, believe me. Nothing is really as simple as ‘this is wrong’ and ‘this is right’. I mean… look at… oh, I dunno, religion.”

She felt a pang, remembering her creeping off to a church desperately looking for guidance.

“You could have the same religion, and two people who both say ‘mmm yeah, that’s the one I believe in’. But even if they both claim to believe in the same thing, you might have one that’s all about the forgiveness aspect of it, and goes around basically turning the other cheek like it’s an addiction. The other person reads up on things and realizes that God used to really be all about the smiting and the vengeance, and decides to go all Spanish Inquisition hunter on stuff. Both of them are reading the same book, going to the same church on Sunday, praying to the same God. But one is all mercy and peace, and the other is all smiting and death and destruction. You get what I’m saying here?”

“Yeah…”

“But here’s the thing – they’re both right, and they’re both wrong. There are shades of grey to the whole thing! Because yeah, God went all ‘holy justice’ and smote down people… but then he went all ‘love thy neighbour’, so they’re both right, and they’re both wrong.”

“I get you,” Jess nodded, considering that. “So you’re a shades of grey type of hunter?”

Jo laughed softly. “I guess you could say that.”

Nodding, she slipped under a low hanging tree branch. Jo was perfect. Too perfect. In every way, this woman was exactly what she needed, what she wanted, but she couldn’t do this to her. This perfect woman was going to be hunted by demons, just because she was there.

Straightening a little, Jess wondered if maybe there was a little demon in her. Could that demon have been right? Could she be one of them, even if not fully? 

Becoming one of them, maybe, like that Gordon’s sister had become a vampire?

A shudder ran down her spine, and she swallowed, shivering. She didn’t want to think about it, but the honest truth was that she was scared for her lover. And she wasn’t scared about this hunting lifestyle or any of that new age-y crap – she was worried because of herself. She was going to be the cause of Jo’s pain, the demons said. And yeah, demons lied. Demons lied a lot. 

But they might have a point.

“Jo,” she called softly, about to suggest that they needed to talk when the other interrupted her. 

“I found it!” she hollered, and Jess started jogging forward to catch up to the other. She hadn’t even noticed that Jo had gotten ahead of her. Coming up beside the shorter woman, panting softly, she looked down, and whistled. 

There was a circle in the centre of the grass, a perfectly round bare patch where not even a single tendril of green shot up from the ground, as though it was an unholy touching of soil. The only indication of foliage was the circle of small mushrooms growing just at the edge, setting a barrier off. “Well… that’s not ominous looking at all.”

Jo snorted, and crouched beside it, flashing the light over the details, taking it all in. “Nice and smooth, perfect for dancing… what we have here, my friend, is a bona fide fae circle.”

“So what do we do with it?” she asked, crouching beside her.

“Well, for one, never ever put any part of your body inside of it.” Jo glanced back at her. “Some won’t mind, or really do anything, but depending on the day of the month, or the alignment of the moon, or… I dunno, whether or not their queen is PMSing that day, or something, I never really claimed to understand the faery rules, they kind of have the right to take you.”

“The right.” Jess repeated, brows furrowed.

“There is kind of a set of laws in the magical world, not that most people know about it, anymore. Back in the old days, everyone would have known. Travelers would have left gift for the fae to make sure that they wouldn’t take their loved ones, then they’d book it. But these days…”

Jess’ flashlight flicked to a backpack sitting just outside the circle, lingering on it. “These days, dumbass hikers decide it would be a really good idea to climb into the circles. There’s a camera on top of that bag.”

“Oooh, let’s see if he managed to catch anything interesting,” Jo stood, darting over to pick the camera up. “Battery’s dead.”

“Here,” she dug in her pocket, and offered two double As. “Thought the hunt for the circle itself was going to go on longer before we got lucky, we don’t need spare flashlight batteries after all. Light ‘er up.”

Jo replaced the batteries, then flicked it on. “Shit, the guy had it on a timer. Come see.”

Jess padded over through the grass to stand beside her, leaning slightly on the other woman’s shoulder for a few moments as she flicked through the series of photos. 

The subject of most of the pictures had been the majesty of the spring, the hills, the tress, the grass, but every once in awhile there was a clearly staged touristy trap photo, with the same young man leaning on funny sign posts, or in front of local landmarks, grinning the same excited, goofy grin in each. Towards the end, though, there were sunset photos, then a series of the circle itself. Finally, there was a photo of the guy sitting in the circle, giving the camera two thumbs up.

“Dumbass,” Jess snorted, shaking her head.

“No kidding, look at this one…” Jo flicked over to the last photo, which was exactly the same as the one before – except for the little anomalies all over the photograph, white flares of light, as though some kid with Photoshop had gone nuts with lens flare.

“Faeries?” she guessed.

“Looks that way. Guy has been hauled off to fairyland.” She shook her head, and set the camera back down, considering the pack. “Worst part is, we can’t even get him back.”

“Why not?” she glanced back at the other. 

“Because the fae won’t give a person back until they are good and ready. And they give people back, almost always. Problem is, they won’t necessarily fit in when they come back.”

“Fae-touched?” she guessed, remembering reading about that in the Daemonology book. “When they go slightly insane and childish, and start to think that leaves are shoes, and stuff like that? Usually the fae-touched are desperate to get back to the fairyland again, because they don’t want to be in our mundane world anymore.”

“Yeah.” Jo nodded. “And even if they’re not fae-touched, time passes differently in fairyland than it does here, so while they might have been there for fifty years, here it might have been three days. Or it might have been three days in fairyland, but fifty years here.”

“So basically, even if they give this guy back, it’s not going to be good,” Jess murmured.

“Mmmhmm, and even if they do give him back… well, we need to destroy this circle.” Jo dug in her pockets for the salt and the matches.

“Why?” she blinked. “Won’t they need it to give him back?”

“Naw, they usually dump people off outside of the nearest town,” she sprinkled it generously with salt, shaking it out over the ground. “Once a person has been inside the circle, it’s tainted for the fae. They won’t ever dance there again. But… just because they don’t dance there doesn’t mean that they won’t still claim someone who is stupid enough to step into it.”

“Ah. So we have to light it up, to make sure that no one decides to play the Hokey-Pokey with a magic circle,” Jess nodded.

“Exactly.”

She shook her head, slightly, at the idea, and tugged the lighter fluid out of her jacket pocket, sprinkling it over the salt. “Okay. Ready.”

Jo nodded, and lit one of the matches, shoving it back into the matchbook so that the whole thing lit rapidly on fire, and tossed it into the centre of the circle of mushrooms. There was a moment of silence, then the lighter fluid caught, and the flames spread rapidly, licking out at the fluid to hit the mushrooms. They shriveled, quickly, but what was odd was that the grass outside wasn’t even scorched.

“Why’s it doing that?” Jess frowned.

“Fae circles are old school, old world magic,” she crossed her arms, considering the fire as it flickered into the sky, burning hot and fast. She shrugged, as though that explained everything.

They stood there in silence for a few minutes, watching the fire burn, then Jess said, abruptly, “You need to go home.”

Jo blinked, and glanced back at her. “…what?”

“You need to go home.” Jess said again. She was keeping her voice as low and calm as she could manage, trying not to let it tremble. “I’ve been thinking about it. Your mother is probably freaking out.”

“You want me to leave you? Are we – are we breaking up?” Jo’s voice cracked, and in the flickering light of the fire, her eyes were bright and wet.

“No.” She said quickly.

“…no? Then…”

Jess swallowed. She had been going to suggest that they do exactly as Jo was fearing. She was going to tell her that they should just go their separate ways, go do what they both needed to do. But she couldn’t. Looking down into the other woman’s eyes, she felt the wrenching in her gut that told her, over and over, that Jo was impossible to quit, impossible to leave. She couldn’t leave this woman, not completely. Never. She was fairly sure they were linked now. “I just think… I really think you need to go home. Spend some time with your mother.”

“…we can go home. We can spend time with my mother,” Jo whispered, hands shaking. 

“You think your mother is ever, ever going to look at me as something other than the freak who took the book she was given and then stole the daughter to go with it, as a matched set? You could marry me and she would probably never accept me. I just… if you go home, for a bit… and spend time with her… she has to be able to understand that you’re safe. That you can do this.”

“Fine, I’ll go home for a couple hours!” she yelped, eyes wet.

“Jo… you know that’s not enough…” she whispered, cupping the other woman’s face, her own eyes wet and bright. She hadn’t realized this how much this was going to hurt. Well, she had figured on this, but she thought she’d braced herself enough to make it not hurt. “You need to go home. You need to spend time with her.”

“I don’t want to be without you!”

“I don’t want to be without you, either,” Jess whispered, hands trembling on the other’s jaw. The motive of sending Jo home to her mother was important. It was. But really, it was an excuse – to give Jess enough time to find out if there was any way she could prevent the demons from pinning her, following her. It was underhanded, but she was trying to take care of both of them at once. “It’s just going to be for awhile.”

“What are you going to do?!” Jo yelped. “I don’t want you to go hunting without me! That’s – I’d worry all the time, I’d…”

“You’re gonna think I’m crazy,” she murmured quietly, “Because you’re the one who knows everything, but… I’m going to research. I’m planning on immersing myself in the books and learning everything about… everything.”

“I can help,” she whispered, trembling.

“I know you can, I know,” she whispered, pressing her forehead against the other woman’s, closing her eyes tightly to try and prevent the tears from sneaking out of her eyes. “But… we both have some demons we need to face. Metaphorically. We face enough real demons together, this time we need to face some of those internal personal ones. You need to face your mother, I need to research.”

“Okay,” she whispered, gently. “Two weeks.”

Jess snorted. “Only two weeks, eh?”

“Only two weeks.” Jo insisted, firmly, jaw set. “I won’t let this go longer than two weeks, I need to be with you, Jess, this is… we have to be together, you understand me? This is… important.”

“I know,” she murmured, gently, hoping that there was any way they could do it in two weeks, but she knew that two weeks may not be long enough, not enough for Jess to find everything she needed to know. She had to find out so much about herself, about how she was linked to the denizens of hell, she needed to know how to get them off her. It might take longer than two weeks.

“Promise me?” she asked, voice tremoring.

“I can’t promise, Jo.” Jess kissed her softly, gently. “I’m sorry.”

Her fingers tightened on Jess’ upper arms, tightly. “I can’t do this if you aren’t willing to promise me, Jess. I need to know.”

“You can do it, Jo. You have to do it.” She squeezed her eyes shut until she could see sparks flaring behind her lids. “I need to know that you’re safe while I do this.”

“Safe… what are you doing?!” Jo cried softly.

“Researching, Jo,” she whispered, firmly. “I promise. But while I’m doing that… I can’t focus unless I know that you are safe somewhere.”

“…oh.” She murmured, shivering. “I don’t want to, Jess…”

“I know. I don’t want to either. I don’t.”

“Then don’t, it’s so easy…” she keened, softly, pressing her forehead harder against the other’s, shaking harder. “We can do it just like this! I don’t need to go home, I don’t, my mother just needs a phone call or something, and it’ll be okay! I need to be with you, if you’re going to be doing this, we can research together, we can study… we – I thought we had…”

“We do,” she said quickly, kissing Jo again. “I promise. If it takes forever, we’ll be back together. Together.”

“It better fucking not take forever,” she grumbled.

Jess snorted, softly, and murmured, “I know. We’ll… we’ll aim for two weeks.”

“If you take longer than two weeks, I am stealing a car from one of the hunters in the bar, and I am going to track you down, and tie you down to the bed until I can make you come with me. To… wherever. But you and I are going to be together, understand me?”

“Yes.” She promised. “No one else is going to come between us, no worries there.”

“You’re not secretly sleeping with someone on the side, are you?” Jo smirked faintly. There were tear tracks on her slightly soot covered cheeks, but at least she was smiling. “Cause if you are, I’m going to shoot them. So you know.”

“I ain’t gonna cheat on you, baby, I promise.” She said firmly, kissing her again.

“Good.” She muttered, quietly. 

“…not gonna shoot me now?”

“No…” Jo murmured, quietly. “But if you don’t come back to me…”

“Yeah, I know.” She nodded, quietly, pressing her forehead into Jo’s again for a firm moment, then stepped back, quietly. “Now. Let’s go get into that car and head out to the Roadhouse, huh?”

“Nnngh.” She groaned softly, and slid her fingers into Jess’, holding her hand, tightly, trying to keep contact with her, trying to keep their connection permanently together as long as she could possibly maintain it. She just didn’t want to be apart from her… this whole thing was painful.

Jess squeezed back, gently, crying silently as they walked.

Sure, she said that it wasn’t permanent. Yes, she wanted it to last no longer than two weeks and she wanted to run back to her – hell, screw running back, she didn’t want to have to leave her in the first place – but if this was what she had to do to keep the woman she needed safe… then that was what she was going to do.

As long as she had to.  
  
  
[Part Thirteen](http://sparrowshellcat.dreamwidth.org/42491.html).

\----

 

  



	13. sparrowshellcat | And Sing of Sweet Surrender - Part Thirteen

  


  


__I feel like our world’s been infected  
And somehow you left me neglected  
We’ve found our lives been changed  
Babe, you lost me

“I am going to kill you dead.”

Jess snorted, smirking slightly as she settled in the very wide window frame, which was curved and let her relax in it as though it was a hammock or a sling, comfortable as she rested her left temple against the brightly coloured stained glass, quietly. “Sure you will.”

“My mom was piiiiiissed,” Jo groaned on the other end of the phone line, petulantly. 

“Oh yeah? But wasn’t she happy to see you?”

“Sure, she was happy to see me… though I think she broke a couple ribs when she hugged me,” she grumbled on the other end of the line, and Jess could fairly see her shaking her head. “But… I mean… she’s happy, I guess. You were right, she hates you.”

Jess snorted, smirking slightly, stretching out. “Mmhmm.”

“Maybe she would be less angry if you were keeping more in touch with me.” Jo pointed out. “Now she’s starting to think you are a creepy creepy stalker kidnappy person who took me, the innocent virginal maiden, away from home and hearth just so that you could pervert me and put me in danger and sleep with me a whole lot, and then drop me on the doorstep of the bar without another word. I mean… okay, so you’ve been doing the email thing, but you haven’t been doing the telephone thing. I mean, for one thing… you know what night it is?”

“Saturday,” Jess answered, obtusely, even though she knew what the other wanted her to say.

“Two weeks from the day that we were supposed to get back together,” Jo said, firmly. “I am going to assume that you are not in the car right now, on your way to come see me?”

“Sorry,” she admitted. “I’m not.”

“Figured.” Jo sighed heavily, frustrated. “Why not?”

“Because I haven’t found the information that I was hoping to find, already. I thought that I would have the information, maybe, but… I don’t. So I need more time.”

“I feel like a mafia boss, or something. ‘Please, Don Jo, I just need a little more time…’” she tried to imitate an Italian accent, badly. 

Jess snickered. “Nice.”

“I thought so… you should hear my German accent. Apparently it sounds Dutch.”

“If you speak German, you can speak Dutch,” Jess laughed, reaching up, idly, to brush her fingers over the thick lead between the brightly coloured sheets of glass. A massive angel loomed over her in the window, one of the old pictures of Michael smiting the dragon, spear drawn back to thrust it into the metaphorical devil’s head. “The languages are close, very close. So maybe that’s not such a bad thing.”

“Is, if you ask German people,” Jo snickered. “So. Where are you?”

“At the moment? In a church.”

“And you’re talking on your cell phone to me?!” Jo laughed. “You are such a damn rebel, girly girl.”

“Not really. I’m… squatting. Sort of.” She glanced back into the attic of the massive cathedral. This was exactly the kind she had been avoiding before, as this one had a congregation of several thousand, and was in the middle of a very large city. It was so big that it had its own library, on site, and it was that library that she had been spending sixteen or so hours in a day, researching the demonology section. But up here in the attic, there was the mechanical device that now pulled the massive bells, as well as the entrance to the tower itself, because of course, nowadays, no one pulled those massive bells anymore. When they rang, it was almost deafening in here, which awkwardly meant she was woken almost every hour she tried to sleep by those bells. There were racks with old choir and altar boy robes, boxes of spare candles, and dusty racks of falling apart Bibles.

And in the front of the room, by these massive windows, was her ‘bedroom’, an old metal framed single bed, a table and chairs that had once been a communion table and the ‘thrones’ that used to be at the front of the church for the priests, and a mini fridge and microwave. There was even a bathroom up here, behind a curtain instead of in a room. Apparently it had been a priest’s room, once upon a time.

Poor priest. 

“You’re squatting in a church?!”

Jess smirked slightly, squirming in the window sill a little. “Not really. Sort of. I came in to talk to a priest, explained my situation, and the guy set me up here.”

“Why?” she asked, sounding surprised.

“Apparently it’s a priest thing… to take care of the damned, to try to save them.”

“You’re not damned.”

“I’m damned, Jo,” she corrected, sighing softly. “Yeah. I am, don’t try and pretend I’m not, we all know I am. I don’t think there is any way a person can go to hell for awhile and come back and not be damned. Seriously. But anyway, he decided this was important, that they should try and, you know, un-damn me. So I’m on hallowed ground, we’ll see if it works.”

“Wow.” Jo murmured, softly. “Huh.”

“Yeah.”

“…so you’re squatting in a church and studying how to not be damned, and this is… this is more important than being curled in my bed with me, right now, all warm and safe?”

Jess sighed softly, closing her eyes. “It’s not that it’s more important, it’s just… it is important. Just not more.”

“This isn’t fair, Jess. I want you here. I want you with me, I want to be curled up with you. If this is really important… us, I mean, if we are important, then we need to be together. Not separated like this.”

“Absence makes the heart grow fonder, Jo,” she murmured.

“If I was any fonder of you, Jess, you would have to be on the moon, to be that absent. It’s not going to get better, just worse, the longer you are away, the more it hurts.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“You better be.” Jo sighed, heavily. “I wish you were here, Jess.”

“Believe me, babe. I’d be with you if I could.”

“Why’d you leave, then?”

“Didn’t I tell you that?” Jess smirked faintly, shaking her head. “I seem to remember having this conversation already.”

“You told me that I should go visit my mother, and that you were going to research demons. Quite frankly… I’m pretty damn sure I’m smart enough to know that this is not in fact the truth. Sure, I mean… it’s a kernel of truth. There is a kernel of truth in the middle of the whole thing, but you know as well as I do that there is more than this. Was it – was it that demon?”

Jess hesitated, feeling cold. “…which one?”

The other woman laughed faintly on the other end of the airwaves. “The little girl. The powerful one.”

“Mm.” she said noncommittally.

“The one that said something about how you were marked by them, that they could find you… that they were going to make your life pain and suffering. Did… is that it? Is it because they can track you?”

“That’s part of it,” she murmured, quietly. 

“Did you think they were going to get me?” Jo whispered.

Someone else might have pointed out that this theory was narcissistic, to think that the current situation was created because she was concerned for her well being. But that someone else wouldn’t have been told by a demon exactly this. 

“Yeah,” she murmured.

“Jess…” Jo said softly, voice cracking slightly in the background, and she closed her eyes, wincing. Jess felt hollow now, like her insides were full of jagged, broken glass, and pressed her forehead firmly against the cold glass, trembling as she could hear the other woman’s heart breaking. “Don’t you trust me? I can take care of myself…”

“I know you can, Jo,” she whispered. “I know that you’re a good hunter, I know you can take care of yourself, I know you’re brilliant, I… it’s me I don’t trust.”

“…I don’t understand.”

She let out a long, shaky breath, then tried to explain. “You didn’t hear everything that the demon said. She said… she said they were going to pull me back into hell, and they were going to put me back on the torture rack, and that they… they were going to make me into one of them.”

“They can’t make you into a demon,” Jo said, firmly. 

“Do you know that? Really? I mean… that could be where demons come from. That they are people pulled into hell and turned into demons, and… what if, because I’ve been there already, and I’ve seen it, and I’ve been ripped apart there… what if I’m already… too tainted to turn back. Like… that I’ve already tipped the scales too much, that I’ve already got part of a demon in me.”

“That’s bullshit.” 

“It could be…” she whispered, quietly, slipping out of the window frame, and began pacing the massive attic room. “What if something… tips me over the scales, and I – I turn evil?”

“You won’t,” Jo said firmly, sternly. “I know you won’t.”

“You can’t know that,” she sighed softly.

“No, I can know that, I know you, you are my best friend, you are my lover, you are my every damn thing now. You’re my partner, my confidant, my fucking partner in crime! You and me… we understand each other! For god’s sake, you ditched me in the middle of nowhere again because you were afraid that you were going to go demon on me?! That’s not the kind of person that would go demon and do evil things!”

Jess laughed softly, wiping at her eyes as she walked along the wooden boards, quietly. “I guess that’s true…”

“You know it is,” she said, firmly. “So come get me.”

“I can’t.”

“Because you’re a good person.” She groaned softly. “Because your conscience wouldn’t let you do it, huh?”

“…yeah,” she murmured.

“You are the least demon turning person in the whole friggin’ world, my god,” Jo groaned.

“Thanks,” she snorted.

“So how much longer, then?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted, turning to look up at the stained glass windows, sighing softly. “Not long, I hope. I really hope I can get the information I need here. Maybe I’ll get a little divine inspiration, from sitting in the middle of a church. I could really use some.”

\----

 

“Jude?” Sera leaned in the door of the other woman’s room. “I have the next manuscript… remember, I promised to make sure you got to edit this time?”

“Mmmhmm,” Jude murmured, not opening her eyes.

“Um… you want it now?”

“Mmmhmm.”

Stepping into the room, she set the spiral bound pages on the other woman’s desk, then frowned, looking down at her with her hands on her hips. “Why are you lying on the floor in the middle of the room?”

“I dunno,” she murmured, quietly.

“…if you tell me it’s because of Jess and Jo… I might have to kill you.”

“I never said that.”

“But that is the problem, isn’t it?” Sera demanded, crossing her arms as she leaned over her, peering down at her. 

Jude tugged her glasses down off her forehead to set them back on her nose, considering her best friend. “That’s not really it, it’s… sort of. Every time I write, I feel like shit.”

“So don’t write.”

“That, my friend, is not an option.”

Sera rolled her eyes, and tugged Jude’s black faux-leather chair out from the desk, and sat in it, crossing her legs as she considered her, thoughtfully. “So get them back together. Stop them from being broken up.”

“They’re not broken up.”

“No, of course not, they’re not ‘broken up’, you just forced them into the weirdest long distance relationship ever, which is fueled entirely by Jess lying through her teeth to Jo. Constantly.”

Jude peered up at her, frowning slightly. “…details, details.”

Snorting, she leaned back in the chair, considering her. “Get them back together.”

“I will. I think. I hope. Nngh.” She groaned, scrubbing at her face with her hands. “I don’t know! I want to get them together again, I want them to be happy and together and I want everything to be perfect again and I can’t guarantee that I’m going to be able to do that because I have no idea what’s going to happen in this damn stupid story until it actually happens!”

“You didn’t plan any of this?”

“Hell no!” Jude scrambled up, twisting so that she could face her friend. “This was supposed to be this tiny little… character piece!”

“Character piece, the thing is a huge story!” Sera gaped at her. 

“I know! It wasn’t supposed to be! It was supposed to be small, I had no idea that it was going to be huge and massive and… crazy huge and… it got so out of control,” she groaned softly, leaning back against her bed, hugging herself slightly. “I’ve never written anything like this before. Ever. It’s taken over.”

“So sto – “

“Don’t try and tell me to stop it,” she groaned softly. “Sera, it’s… it’s hard to explain. I can’t do it. I can’t stop.”

“At least stop drinking when you write?” she suggested.

“I did. I’m back to being addicted to Pepsi again,” she sighed, closing her eyes as she leaned against the bed, quietly. “Like… five litres of it a day, which makes me sorta sick, but… whatever. I’m being good. No more alcohol for me.”

“Then… why the floor thing?”

“Mm. Migraines,” she tapped her forehead. “I’ve been getting them more and more lately. All light sensitive and noise sensitive, but the worst part is this really high pitched brain piercing shrieking sound. Makes me feel like my ears are going to start bleeding.”

“Ouch.” Sera blinked. “That sounds… unpleasant.”

“Oh, believe me,” she groaned, “It really is. I’d rather gouge my eyeballs out with a melon baller than ever have to experience it again.”

“….that might be the grossest mental image you’ve ever given me.”

Jude snickered. “Even worse than the decapitation with a rusty metal spoon bit from college?”

“Augh, don’t bring that one up…” Sera groaned, bolting up.

She laughed, shaking her head slightly as she watched her, smirking faintly. “I’ll edit the book over the weekend.”

“Okay, good… I think you’re going to like it.”

“Oh yeah?”

“S’called Devil’s Trap… Meg’s back. And there’s a great new character… some redneck guy, sounds exactly like the kind of character you’d write about.”

Jude snorted, and stood reluctantly, grabbing the manuscript and a bottle of Advil. “Sounds awesome. Not a huge fan of Meg anymore, though…”

“Naturally, but you know she was kick fucking ass in Shadows,” Sera grinned, amused. 

“Ah… yeah.” She smiled slightly, flopping on the bed as she popped a pill back and started flicking through the pages. “She really was. I liked Meg a lot in that book.”

“Maybe you’ll like her again in this one.”

“Maybe,” Jude agreed, then playfully waved her friend away as she grabbed a red pen. “Now on with you, peasant, I must focus on my work.”

Sera snorted, and waved at her. “Go. Work hard for me, peon.”

Jude’s laughter followed her out of the room.

\----

 

_ Leave all your love and your loving behind you  
Can’t carry it with you if you want to survive _

Clutching three heavy leather bound books to her chest, Jess carefully scaled the curling, circular staircase that led up to her attic quarters, quietly. She’d spent the last twenty six hours in the library, so focused on a new book that might have been helpful for the research that she hadn’t even realized she hadn’t eaten, drank, slept, or even gone to the washroom.

When a priest had finally touched her shoulder and told her quietly that she might want to go somewhere else for at least a little bit, she’d grabbed as many books as she could carry, and headed upstairs.

Pushing the door into the attic, she headed over to the massive wooden table that was her central piece of furniture, setting the books down.

A quick check on her phone told her that Jo had called twice, and sent six text messages, and she groaned, flicking through them. They were mostly messages of concern and alarm, but the most recent had been sent about six hours ago, so she typed a quick, brief text to let her lover know that she was fine, and staggered over to the fridge to get some food. Taking a long swallow of milk straight from the carton, Jess actually jumped when she realized that she was not, in fact, alone, milk spilling on the front of her shirt. “Holy shit!”

“Swearing in a church?” the other woman said quietly, mildly. She was sitting on the edge of Jess’ bed, watching her quietly.

“Who are you? And what are you doing here?” Jess demanded, mentally swearing. She usually would have reached for a weapon, but here there was none – she had been kind of keeping her weapons hidden to not let the nice priests taking care of her there know that she was a dangerous hunting killer person. 

“Waiting for you.” She said quietly, smiling serenely.

Jess hesitated, and slowly set the milk down on the top of the fridge so that the unnerved trembling in her hands wouldn’t be quite as obvious – and so she wouldn’t succumb to the instinct to whip the milk at the mild redhead. “Right. First question. Who are you.”

She stood, and Jess took another step back, to make sure the space between them stayed the same. “My name is Anna.”

“Anna. Right.” She nodded, watching her, eyes narrowed. 

The woman nodded again. “I am an angel.”

Jess actually snorted at that, and flopped on one of the massive throne like chairs around her table, arms crossed as she considered the redhead, frowning. “I am not about to believe that.”

“I know.” Anna stepped closer, and quietly sat in one of the other seats, hands folded in her lap. “I am.”

“Prove it.”

“I fail to see how that would assist in this situation.” She said calmly. “After all, angels are meant to be taken on faith, to be trusted in, believed in without the need for proof.”

“Bullshit. I’ve been doing months of research now. I know that’s not true. In the Bible, people demanded proof that the so called ‘messengers of God’ sent to speak to them were real. Usually those angels were all either ‘you will see this in your dreams’, or ‘this sign will show up’, or they’d burst into flames or something.”

“You are a very… skeptical person,” Anna frowned slightly.

“Mmhmm.” She shrugged with one shoulder. “Call it a fringe benefit.”

“Of?”

“Lots of things,” she muttered, watching her, frowning as she considered her. “So. If you’re an angel, you have the ability to prove to me that you are an angel. In some way.”

Anna sighed softly. “Really.”

She nodded, arms crossed as she watched the redhead, suspiciously. “Seriously. Prove it.”

The lights flickered, and Jess straightened a little, frowning as she tried to find the source. Lightning crashed outside, and the lights kept flickering harder, until it was almost dark with flashes of light like a strobe light in a bar, and shadows and light – like the spreading shadow cast by something invisible even though this was impossible – of massive wings, with something like a twenty five – thirty foot wingspan behind Anna. 

“Holy shit,” Jess gasped, swearing in a church again.

The lights returned to normal, and Anna crossed her own arms, copying her posture. “Are you willing to listen to me now?”

“…yeah.” She murmured.

“Good.” The angel took a deep breath, then nodded. “Good. Now. I am Anna, an angel of the Lord. And I am the one who plucked you from the depths of Hell.”

Jess bolted forward, jaw dropping. “You – you?”

“Yes.” She nodded. 

She slumped back in her seat, gaping at the redheaded woman, jaw hanging slightly as she gaped at her. “…why?”

“That is the question.” Anna unfolded her arms, and smiled softly at her. 

“Yeah, yeah! That is my question! I’ve been trying to find that out, trying to figure out why the hell I’m not in – in hell, and what happened, and here you come saying ‘I’m the one who yanked you out of the pit’, yeah, I want to know why the hell you would do that?!” Jess was shouting by the time she finished her little speech, hands shaking.

“I came to get you because of Sam Winchester.”

Jess slumped back again, her gut clenching. “…what?”

“I came to get you from the pit, to pull you out of hell, because of Sam Winchester.” Anna said again, hands folded neatly in her lap as she considered her. She looked so mild and sweet and innocent. “You already know that you died in the beginning because of Samuel, I assume.”

“I – sort of. He – the demon was trying to torture Sam, right?”

“Mmm. Yes. He wanted to ensure that Sam would leave you, that Sam would go out into the world again, and be crushed. So the yellow eyed demon killed you, and he forced you to hell, just to further increase the pain. He knew that you had to be dead.”

“I don’t… I don’t understand…”

“He needs you to be dead.” Anna shifted forward, intense. “You have to be dead. Because if you are alive, you have the ability to stop what is going to happen.”

“….what is going to happen?”

“The yellow eyed demon has a plan for Sam, and it’s… it’s not good, Jess.” The angel actually looked sympathetic, which made her more nervous. “People are going to die. A lot of people are going to die. We’re talking end of the world, destruction of all mankind. And Sam… Sam will die.”

“No!” Jess gasped, horrified, bolting forward, then hesitated slightly, realizing that freaking out was not going to help now. “That’s – no, Sam can’t…”

“I know, Jess,” she said softly. “I know. That’s why I had to get you out.”

“I – I can stop it? I don’t understand…” she reached up to scrub at her forehead, closing her eyes firmly as she tried to puzzle this out in her mind. “How can I stop this? How can I prevent Sam dying?”

“You’re not preventing his death, Jess.” Anna said softly, shifting forward in her seat, reaching forward enough to squeeze the other woman’s hands. “That… you can’t stop in time. You are here, back from hell, for the express purpose of saving Sam from hell.”

“Oh god,” she breathed, eyes wide.

She nodded. “Please. I need you to listen to me, I need you to do this for me. I need you to save him.”

“I – yes! Anything! When?! When is this going to happen?!”

“Time is…” Anna hesitated. “I am not sure. Time is complicated. As it is, I had to come back through the folds of time to get here. The knowledge of the future is what sent me to get you from the pit, to draw you back.”

“…you’re an angel from the future?” she blinked.

The other smirked slightly. “Yes.”

“Oh. Well. Then I guess you would know that in the future I really need to save him, I – I have to save Sam.”

“Yes,” she whispered, squeezing her hands again. “Save him from hell, and you’ll save all of mankind.”

“Of course.” She nodded, quickly, smiling faintly. “But… what about… the demon thing…”

“They do know where you are.” She hesitated. “They can find you.”

“Does that mean I – was I right?” Jess murmured.

“That you can become a demon?” Anna shook her head. “Not unless you go into hell again, and more happens… no. You are human, Jess, you are… a live, breathing woman. A hunter. But I will tell you this. For as long as you live, Jo will be under attack from every demon that you have the chance to encounter.”

Jess keened softly, closing her eyes tightly. 

“I won’t lie to you,” she said. 

“So she’s… my being…” Jess took a deep breath, steadying herself. “If I am anywhere near her… she is likely to be in pain. If I am there, she will suffer, and demons will follow and hurt us both. Especially her. That’s what you’re telling me?”

Anna nodded. “Yes.”

“So I – I can’t stay near her,” she whispered, voice cracking.

The angel nodded, smirking faintly. 

“Oh god,” she moaned, slumping back in the seat, closing her eyes. “I can’t… do that to her anymore, then. I can’t chance it. I can’t hurt her…”

Opening her eyes, Jess blinked, surprised to find herself alone in the room.

The cell phone on the table rang, and she jumped.

Scooping it up, quietly, she blinked at it for a few moments, Jo’s name on the little screen, then, slowly, wishing that she wasn’t about to do this, she hit the button to reject the call, then slumped back in her seat, feeling cold and dead.

She was a terrible person.

Jess started to shake, and began to sob, her heart breaking in half.

\----

 

__You couldn’t be more wrong, darling  
I never gave out these signs  
You misunderstand all meaning  
Snap out of it  
I’m not falling for this one

Bundled up in Sam’s old jacket and a scarf that had started its life as one of his plaid shirts, Jess climbed the steps of the church that had become her own, hands firmly in the jacket pockets. It was snowy and frozen, and considering it was only the second week of November, there was an awful lot of snow already. It wasn’t that cold, fortunately, because her attic bedroom got cold in the winter, she had discovered in the six months since she had been living there.

Boots ringing on the tile floors as she headed inside, one of the priests waved her over, smiling brightly, and Jess headed over to him, smiling. 

“Jess… was that new text helpful?”

“It was, thank you, Father Andrew,” she smiled, the smile not quite reaching her eyes. “I thought learning Latin would be harder, but… I guess with a limited amount of other things to do, it makes sense to be able to learn it. Thank you, it’s been very helpful.”

“Good,” he nodded, then paused. “Your friend has arrived, she’s already gone upstairs.”

She blinked, surprised, glancing at the stairs. “Anna just left before I went out to get lunch… why is she back already?”

He just smiled enigmatically at her, and patted her arm. “Go, my child. I’ll talk to you later.”

“Mm? Oh, yes, thank you,” she nodded quickly, and headed towards the back of the large cathedral, where the staircase that led up to the attic was. She headed quickly up the stairs, hand skimming up on the railing. The angel wasn’t there terribly often, but occasionally, she would show up to help her with her demon studies, giving her brief pieces of useful information.

Pushing the door open, she called, “Anna? Are you there?”

“Who’s Anna, Jess?”

She stopped dead, shocked. 

Jo sat on the edge of Jess’ single bed, fingers curled on the edge of the mattress. She had taken off her jacket and her boots, and was sitting on the bed in her socked feet and a tank top and jeans. Her hair was longer than Jess remembered, which made sense as it had been six months. 

“…Jo?” she breathed, shocked.

“Who’s Anna, Jess?” Jo said again, gripping the blankets tighter, knuckles white. “Do I have to shoot somebody?”

“No! I – no!” she gasped, and bolted forward, hesitating. “No, I – she’s somebody I met, I – what are you doing here?”

“I came to figure out what the fuck my girlfriend has been doing without me, and why the fuck she hasn’t been answering my emails or my texts or my phones calls. For six fucking months.” Jo set her jaw, crossing her arms as she glowered at her. “And then you walk into your room, calling for another fucking woman.”

“Jo, it’s – it’s not… it’s not like that…”

“Then what is it like?!” she shouted, eyes bright again.

Jess flinched, then stepped forward, quickly, and slowly sitting on one of the throne like chairs, quietly, swallowing. “Every word of what I am about to say is going to sound insane.”

“I’m listening.”

She swallowed, then said, “Anna is an angel, specifically the one who yanked me out of hell. She came to tell me why she pulled me out of hell, which is to save my ex-boyfriend from going to hell, because if he does, basically the apocalypse is going to kill everyone, so I had to be alive in order to save him from hell, and she came and told me this, and she confirmed that if I ever… ever am around you, you’re going to be the target of demons. So I – I wanted to save you from that, so I – I was trying to keep you safe and happy.”

Jo whipped one of the pillows at Jess, and beaned her in the forehead. “You are an idiot!”

She blinked, surprised. “Jo – “

“Idiot idiot idiot!” she roared, and bolted off the bed, throwing herself into Jess’ lap, straddling her thighs, which startled her. She slammed her fists on the back of the chair, on either side of Jess’ head, and yowled, “I am not going to be happy if you’re not fucking with me! Yeah! It’s dangerous! Hunting is dangerous! It’s always dangerous! So if a demon gets me it’s not because of you, it’s because we’re hunters, Jess! God! Look at me!”

“I know, but – “

“Don’t be a martyr, Jessica Moore!” she yelled, furious. “It fucking sucks, that demons want to kill us! It fucking sucks that they’re sending us to hell if they get their hands on us! But you sitting there saying ‘I’m trying to save you’ isn’t noble, it’s fucking narcissistic! It’s bullshit! Fuck!”

She winced. “I was trying to save you from – “

“I don’t care what you were trying to do! I don’t want to be separated from you!”

“I had a dream that you died like I did!” Jess howled. She was crying hard, despite herself.“That’s why I woke up in the car screaming, that’s why I was distant, that’s why I was puking, that’s why I was freaking out! You got ripped apart and burned on the ceiling, just like I did, and I was fucking terrified that it was actually going to happen!”

“What are you, psychic?!” Jo roared.

“I don’t know, maybe I am, I just couldn’t risk it!” she howled.

“Oh for – if I die in a fireball on the ceiling, then I die in a fireball on the fucking ceiling!” she waved her arms, still sitting in Jess’ lap, though kind of aggressively sitting, if there was such a thing. “But you know what?! Before the fireball, I’d at least get to be fucking happy! I could get hit by a truck tomorrow, too, would you say you couldn’t sleep with me tonight because I might get hit by a truck tomorrow, too?!”

“That’s different,” she started.

“No.” she said sharply. “It’s not.”

Jess hesitated, swallowing. “Jo, I – I’m telling you, I just wanted to save you from…”

“You don’t think that’s my choice?” she demanded, sharply. “You don’t think I don’t have the choice to say that maybe I wanted to chance it, myself that it’s not your choice, that maybe this is my choice?!”

“I – I’m sorry…” she whispered, tears still streaming down her cheeks. “I just wanted to save you from it…”

“It’s not your choice, Jess.” Jo pressed her forehead against the other woman’s, trembling as the rage was mostly shaken out of her by the scream, and was starting to slip past it into just weakness. “The choice you get is whether or not to love me. And that’s the only choice you get, here, I’m not leaving you again, and you are not leaving me anymore, do you understand me?”

Jess nodded, quietly, closing her eyes. “Yeah.”

“Good.” The other slumped, bonelessly, and shifted just enough to kiss her gently, a bare touching of lips against lips. “It’s been hell without you, Jess.”

“Yeah,” she nodded, holding her gently. “Yeah… it has been.”

“Never happening again, right?” she asked, brow still pressed firmly against hers, as though trying to communicate with her, trying to speak with her through the mind. “You and me… we’re a team from now on, all right?”

“Yeah,” Jess murmured, gently rubbing the other woman’s lower back. “I missed you.”

“Yeah, well, you haven’t spoken to me in six months, that would be a good reason to miss me,” Jo murmured. “Fuck, Jess, I went full on hunting, with some guys I know… just to get out there. And believe me, it wasn’t the same. I almost got killed by the ghost of a serial killer.”

“What?” she tugged her closer, alarmed. “Are you all right?!”

“Yeah, I’m all right now.” She nodded. 

“Are you sure?” Jess asked, concerned, stroking her back still.

“Yep. I’m fine, but if you want to check…” she drawled, and slid off of Jess’ lap, taking her hands and tugging her up. “I think it’d be great if you and I got on that bed, and I’ll get naked and you can check every single inch of me to make sure I’m fine. Hey, I might even have a scar or two that you didn’t know about… you might want to check on those.”

Jess laughed softly, and followed her, crawling onto the bed when Jo lay down, leaning over her as she gently stroked the other’s cheek. “Mmm… that, my dear, sounds like the most amazing suggestion I’ve heard in a long time.”

“Besides… way I hear it, the best part of having huge fights is the making up afterwards.” Jo smirked.

Laughing at the idea, she kissed her eagerly, firmly. Laying down beside her on the bed, she cupped Jo’s jaw as she kissed her again and again, softly and eagerly, lovingly, trying to apologize through her lips but without words, and murmured, “Then let’s make up for it, baby.”

“Mmm… having lesbian sex in a Catholic church… we are the ultimate deviants,” Jo giggled, fingers tangled in Jess’ hair.

“Actually, if you want really deviant, there are some altar boy robes over there,” she drawled, pointing, and laughed when the other yelped in horror at the very idea. Rolling closer to her on the bed, she just laughed, kissing Jo eagerly. 

They had a lot of time to make up for, after all.   
  
  
[Part Fourteen](http://sparrowshellcat.dreamwidth.org/42684.html)

\----

 

 

  



	14. sparrowshellcat | And Sing of Sweet Surrender - Part Fourteen

  


  


__ Stranded in this spooky town  
Stoplights are swaying and the phone lines are down  
This floor is crackling cold, she took my heart, I think she took my soul 

“This is some place,” Jo padded barefoot around on the wooden floorboards, hands behind her back, loosely holding onto each other. She was as naked as the day was long, bright sunlight pouring in through the stained glass windows and casting brightly coloured light across her skin. 

“I like it,” Jess murmured, flicking the ashes off of a cigarette she was lazily smoking. She didn’t smoke very often, never had, but when she completely stressed she did, and over the last six months, she had started doing so more often. The alcohol, however, had come back with a vengeance, as indicated by the dozens of glass bottles scattered around the room. “It’s large… it’s sunny… beautiful.”

“And you’ve done interesting things with it,” she laughed, nodding at the sheets tacked up everywhere, covering the walls.

There were newspaper articles, notebook sheets, and on one wall, a massive map of the United States formed by printing out some thirty sheets and taping them up into one full map. This one had red yarn strings tacked up all over it, in a strange sort of pattern, each with a little label that presumably explained why that city was marked. There were drawings amongst the writing, some of them of creatures, demons, things that Jess had apparently read about, but there were also portraits of people drawn from memory, including one of Meg, and dozens of Jo herself. 

“I figured other hunters have journals, but… I’ve been staying in one place. So I didn’t really need to put it in portable form when I was just able to spread out, instead.”

“Mmm,” she nodded, then tapped one second of the papers. “This is brilliant, Jess. It’s like, a… a laymans demon lexicon. You’ve got information on every major kind of demon, everywhere… this is brilliant. I mean, this description of the crossroads demons… damn, Jess. You better hope that no one else ever finds these!”

She laughed, shaking her head. “Yeah, no kidding.”

Jo turned back to look at Jess, considering her for a few minutes, thoughtfully. “Mm. So… I guess we’re going to have to figure out a way to fit both of us in this little bed.”

“You don’t think you want to start travelling again?” she asked, flicking ashes off of the cigarettes again. “I mean, that’s kind of what hunters do. They get up, and they move, and… they go.”

“True, but not all hunters do. Bobby stays in one place.”

“Bobby?”

“Bobby Singer. Old family friend.” Jo padded over to her, and slipped into Jess’ lap, relaxing against the other woman’s chest, head on her shoulder. “Mmm. He’s a hunter, but he stays in one place. He has a house – hell, he has a junkyard in the middle of nowhere – but he still hunts, he still goes out and does the work, but he just has to travel further to get there.”

“So are we planning on staying here?” she asked, stabbing her cigarette butt out so that she could stroke her lover’s side, gently. 

“Why not? You need to do a ton of research, right? That’s why you picked this place.”

Jess nodded. “That’s why I’m here.”

“So we’ll stay here. S’not every hunter who can say they live in the attic of Saint Mary’s, the Star of the Sea,” she laughed softly, kissing Jess’ chin, gently. “I could get a job or something, I like Duluth.”

“I don’t know most of Duluth,” she admitted, laughing softly.

“Well, I’ve been here a few times…. Minnesota isn’t bad. I’m good with bars, I’ll be a bartender or something. I’ve done it for years, legal or not,” she smirked. “So it’ll work.”

Jess snorted, kissing her jaw again. “So we’ll travel to jobs, hm?”

“Mmmhmm, there’s no problem doing so, really, we can do that. Especially since we do have such a kickass car,” she grinned down at her, snickering slightly. 

Laughing, she stroked the other’s lower back, then perked up. “Oh! Did I tell you what I found?!”

“No…?” Jo blinked at her.

“I was rummaging around in the glove compartment, because I needed to find some id or something… I can’t even remember what exactly was in there, but anyway, I was going through, and I found the registration papers, and I was looking through them… you are never going to believe who the car is registered to.”

Jo shrugged.

“A Jessica Moore!” she grinned.

“Woah?! Really?” she sat up straighter. “That – that is fucking wild!”

“I know! In 1958, brand new, someone named Jessica Moore bought that car, and registered it, and then took immaculate care of it! And then randomly, one day, we find it with the keys in it!”

“Woah… that’s like… some kind of fate.”

“Or something,” she shook her head, amused. “I was thinking that if the cops ever pull me over or anything, and check on the car, I can always say that it’s clearly mine.” 

“Yeah, but there’s no way that you bought a Chrysler Imperial, brand new, back in 1958.”

“True, but I could always say that it was given to me by my grandmother, who I happen to be named after, and who happened to buy the car brand new back in 1958,” Jess grinned, amused, wiggling her brows.

She laughed, and kissed Jess playfully.

“Mmm…” Jess smiled, relaxing back in the chair, and they sat in silence for several minutes, comfortable and warm, the brightly coloured light from the stained glass windows spilling warm and shining over them, keeping them from freezing despite the nudity. They looked like patchwork, with bits and pieces of bright light staining their skin.

“So tell me about this… Anna.” Jo frowned slightly, squirming into Jess, looking up at her.

She hesitated, and said, “Anna is an angel.”

“You said something about that… angel, huh? Like… old school angel like we talked about before, or girly Hallmark ones?” she pointed at the stained glass window in the far wall. “Like that?”

“A redheaded woman, actually,” Jess hesitated, considering that. “She doesn’t look anything like the Hallmark kind, but… I mean, she looks like a normal woman, I guess, but… I think she has a bit more of a traditional massive power thing like the big bad angels of old would have had… I kind of demanded that she prove she was an angel, which I know, is kind of an entitled dick move, but she just kinda… hints of wings.” She considered that. “If you know what I mean. Like… fire and brimstone and lightning and storms and holy power, I guess. I was… impressed. In the old school sense of impression, where it’s shock and awe and amazement and all that.”

“Wow,” Jo murmured, impressed.

“Mmm, yeah. So I’ve talked to her a few times, about everything…” she held up her wrist, which Jo hadn’t noticed to this point was completely unbandaged. “She did this.”

“It’s healing,” she murmured, surprised. 

“Yeah, I know. Slowly, very very slowly, but ever since Anna arrived, and told me that she was the one who yanked me from the pit, it’s been slowly healing. I’m pretty sure it’s going to scar forever, even if it does fade. I still think it’ll be a burn scar forever.”

Jo nodded, quietly, considering her. “Mm.”

“Anna is… odd.” Jess admitted. “I mean, she’s nice enough, but there’s just something not quite normal about her, if you know what I mean.”

“Well, she is an angel,” the other pointed out.

“Yeah, I know… I guess they’re just not really like us, if you know what I mean? I think it’s kinda like… not all demons manage to act like humans. I don’t think all angels manage to act like humans, either.”

“Do any angels manage to act like humans?” she asked, curiously.

“No idea, only met the one,” Jess laughed, stroking the other’s stomach, lightly. 

“So. Tell me about another change here, lady…” Jo smirked, fingers brushing over Jess’ collarbone, across the black tattoo on her skin. “What is this?”

She laughed softly, watching as the other’s fingers brushed over the five pointed star, which had small Latin writing around the edges, forming a rough, elegant circle. “It’s an anti-possession tattoo, to protect me from any possibility that a demon will be able to sneak into my body, and use it for their own person plaything.”

“Ah.” She murmured. “Should I get one too?”

“Might be a good idea,” Jess smiled, and kissed her gently. “You don’t have to get it in the same place, or anything.”

“You don’t want us to get matching tattoos?” Jo giggled.

“What, and work in a bar with an anti-possession tattoo on your collarbone? Hogwash,” she snorted. “Get it on your lower back, or something, so only I will ever see it.”

“Cocky, hmm?”

“Mmmhmm.” She grinned, kissing the other again. “Very.”

\----

 

 

 

__ My vine twists around your need  
Even the rain is sharp  
Like today as you sh-sh-shock me sane 

The hunt had been going well, for most of the thing, and it had seemed like everything was normal and fairly calm, as they had slipped through the alleys of Duluth, ducking under some of the lower fire escapes as they tracked the small nest of vampires to its source, watching to see if they could find the nest before anyone else would be eaten. 

Moving quietly together, neither of them thought that anything unusual would happen until, abruptly, a redheaded woman was standing on the sidewalk beside them, and stepped forward, quickly. “Jessica.”

She yelped, looking up, then swore, heading over to the angel, furious. Jo watched after her, curiously. “We’re hunting, Anna.”

“I know. I need to talk to you.”

“Oh for… this couldn’t wait until we were home?” she snapped, grumbling. “We’re in the middle of trying to kill a nest of vampires, Anna, we have other things we have to do right now than just talk to you, just because you’re an angel doesn’t mean that you can come bursting in on people and fucking up their plans just because you want to chat.”

“I am not here to just chat,” she snapped, stern, and not at the least bit genial and mild like she normally was. “There is a problem.”

Jess sighed heavily, running her hand through her hair. She was starting to get more than a little frustrated with the angel showing up and enigmatically telling her that there were secret important things that had to be dealt with, and that she had some vague information about something Sam was going to do at some point in the future, which made no sense to Jess with her linear way of thinking, but apparently to a time travelling angel, that wasn’t an issue. “Fine, Anna, what is the problem?”

“The demons know that you’re going to save him.” She said, firmly. 

“So? They’ve known that since you tugged me out of the pit, remember?” Jess crossed her arms, rifle hanging from her hand as she considered the other woman, grumbling slightly. “How is this a surprise?”

“They’re trying to prevent this ever being an issue.”

“…by….?” She prompted, arching a brow, curiously. “Any particular way?”

“Yes. A very particular way.” Anna frowned slightly, eyes flickering to Jo, taking her in for a few moment, considering her. “They plan to prevent your mother’s birth.”

Jess blinked. “That’s impossible.”

“I can travel through time, Jess. Has it never occurred to you that some demons have that same ability?” Anna glowered at her for a moment, jaw stern, and said firmly, “They are going to kill your grandmother, before you are born. Jess, this cannot happen. If you don’t not stop this, then you will not be born, and if you are not born, I cannot save you, and if I cannot save you, you cannot prevent him from going to hell. If he goes… mankind dies, Jess. You must prevent this.”

“I – how in the world would I prevent my own mother’s death?!” she cried, alarmed.

Jo stepped up beside her lover’s side, considering Anna, unimpressed with seeing the angel for the first time. Definitely Hallmark material, though without even the impressively flowing robes and hair. “Is something wrong?”

Anna’s eyes flicked to Jo, considering her for a brief moment, then said firmly, “Be careful.”

“Be careful? When we do what –?”

Abruptly, it was sunny.

Jess and Jo both yelped in surprise, throwing their hands up to shelter their eyes for a moment, and Jess looked around, frantically, alarmed. They weren’t on a city sidewalk anymore, but on the side of a gravel road, wheat fields and cattle on either side of them. Looking around, frantically, she finally realized that about a half mile down the road, there was the beginnings of a real city, and a large sign that read WELCOME TO DULUTH, POP. 107 000.

“I thought Duluth had a population of eighty five thousand,” Jo murmured. “And I thought it was nighttime a minute ago.”

“…it was,” she murmured, shocked. “And it does.”

“Well shit.” She blinked, stunned. “…what the fuck happened?”

“…we’re in Duluth. Sort of.” Jess considered their surroundings, and slowly lowered her rifle, which she had instinctively pulled up when they had arrived in an unexpected surrounding. “Shit. Anna said the demons were going to kill my grandmother… she wouldn’t have… oh please tell me she didn’t…”

“What?” Jo asked, frowning at her. 

“My mother was born in Duluth, Minnesota, spent the first few years of her life here, until my grandfather was transferred to Colorado… my grandmother had her in the Duluth central hospital. I think the demons… if Anna wasn’t just smoking green bananas… might have just come here to kill her. In Duluth. Anna sent us through time. To find my grandmother. Oh god….” She groaned, sinking to sit on the edge of the gravel road, rubbing at her sore forehead. “Fuck.”

“I might be sick,” Jo murmured.

“Please don’t?” she asked, softly, and stood again, tugging Jo closer to her, hugging her tightly.

“Nnngh… what year is it, then?” she asked.

“Well, my mother was born in 1958…” she frowned, considering that.

“Oh god,” Jo groaned again, pressing her forehead tightly against Jess’ collarbone. “You know what this means, of course?”

“What?” Jess blinked.

“We’re gonna get shot by some genius because lesbians are about the least liked things in the world in 1958.”

She hesitated. “…fuck.”

“Yeah.” She sighed softly, and stepped back from Jess, reaching over to slide her fingers into her lover’s, not really caring that some redneck might, in fact, think it was a good idea to start on the hate crimes a little early that day. But she didn’t care, she wanted comfort. “I guess we go into town, then… and find your grandmother…”

“Find the date, actually.” She frowned slightly. “That makes a big difference…”

“To find out how close it is to your mother’s birthday?” 

She nodded, and patted down her pockets, considering if she had money enough for food, or anything. “…shit, I still have the money from that pool game we played the other night! We’re set… food, hotels, whatever we need…”

“Good.” Jo sighed softly, tugging her along the street, relieved. “I was afraid we’d have to start whoring ourselves out for money to save ourselves, or something.”

Jess snorted, and swung the other woman’s arm as they walked. “We should probably hide the guns somewhere, yeah?”

She groaned softly, and nodded. “Yeah…”

“We’ll see if we can spot somewhere. How about in those logs?”

Jo nodded, and clambered down into the ditch, slipping her own rifle into the hollow log, then reached up for Jess’. She handed it over, and watched as the other woman slipped it in beside her own, then offered her a hand to tug her up as well. “C’mon, let’s go.”

A good half hour walk later, and they were passing through a major street that they had actually walked down dozens of times before, but when they did, it was usually covered in more graffiti and garbage, and didn’t look quite so ‘fresh’. The flowers that grew now in small concrete planters along the side of the sidewalk were empty in their own time, and the place was far neater, now. Clean cars passed down the street, with people in neater clothes than them in them. Still, Jo and Jess didn’t seem quite as out of place as they might have – they actually managed to pass several others who looked similarly dressed to them.

“Look, a newspaper stand…” she headed over to the metal box, and crouched to check the date, eyes widening. “August second, 1958.”

“…so?” Jo asked, curiously. 

“…my mother was born on August third, 1958!” she gasped, looking up at her in horror. 

“Shit. Well. We… won’t need to pay for much food?”

Jess groaned, and stood again, grabbing her lover’s hand again.

Finding a phone booth, soon Jo was leaning on the outside of the glass, arms crossed as she watched people, frowning slightly. She was watching the women in their hats and their gloves and crinoline’d dresses, and the men in their neat suits and short ties, curiously. Inside the glass booth, Jess was searching through the old printed phone book, frowning slightly as she considered the list, trying to find her grandmother and grandfather, quietly, finger trailing down the page. “Found them!”

Jo leaned in. “Far?”

“Right on the other side of the city,” she confirmed, sighing softly. “We should see if we can find a way to get a car, or something… maybe a cab…”

She pointed across the street. “Or we could buy a car.”

Jess snorted. “We don’t have that much money.”

“Why, how much do we have?” 

“Seven thousand,” she shrugged. “And some change. It was a good game, remember?”

“I remember, but still… well, come on, we can get a used car, or something. Come on, it’s worth a shot.” She frowned, and tugged her along.

“Fine, fine… coming…” she rolled her eyes.

Jess really didn’t think it was a good idea, whatsoever, until they actually entered the yard, then she gasped, surprised, and veered off from Jo to gently touch the hood of a brand new car, shiny and sleek, bright cardboard numbers in the windshield showing the price – a sale of $5000 even. The car was painted powder blue, with a soft cream hardtop, and white wall tires. When she opened the unlocked driver’s door, the driver’s portion of the flat bench seat turned slightly as though to invite her in, and she sat, slowly, on the tan and blue seat, fingers resting on the white steering wheel, letting out a slow, long breath. “Oh my god.”

“It’s the car,” Jo gasped, running her fingers over the hood of the Chrysler Imperial hardtop sedan, eyes wide. “It’s our car!”

“Brand new,” she whispered. “Our car, brand new, and gorgeous, and…”

“It’s always been registered to Jessica Moore.”

She looked up, jaw hanging. “…I have to but it. I have to buy it. It’s my car, Jo, it’s our car!”

Once upon a time, buying a car was apparently the kind of thing that a person actually could do if they walked in, smiled, and offered a stack of slightly creased hundred dollar bills. The salesman had fairly tumbled over himself trying to sign the deal, and when she suggested a discount because ‘it was her first car, and she really needed something reliable for the children’, he actually bought it, and she walked out with the keys to her car and only a few thousand less. 

“I think I like the fifties,” Jess grinned like a maniac as she slid into the driver’s seat of her baby, again.

“Yeah, until you get your period, and have to start using a napkin with a belt, or when you have to start wearing skirts, and when you discover that there’s one channel and its black and white.”

Jess snorted. “And no internet, either.”

Jo shuddered. “Our cells really aren’t going to work, either… damn. Makes it harder to contact… anyone.”

“Mmm, at least we know where we’re going,” she smiled, and drove down the street, sighing softly. “It’s so sleek… rides like a dream, Jo. I love this. Mm. We have our car and its perfect….”

She laughed softly. “Now can we focus?”

“Sure. We can focus. Nnngh. We have to find my grandmother, and prevent my mother’s death… this is the strangest thing anyone has ever suggested to me.”

Jo snickered.

“Yeah. No kidding,” she sighed, shaking her head.

They drove, quietly, then Jess turned onto a quiet suburban street, and pointed at the numbers. “Can you watch for 710? That’s the one we need.”

She nodded, then called, “There it is, the white one, with the porch.”

Jess nodded, and pulled into the driveway, killing the engine, and sat there in silence for a few moments, quietly, staring up at the house. “I’ve seen photos of this before. My mom grew up here.”

“Are you sure you want to…?” she suggested quietly.

“Yeah, I guess so.” She keened.

“Let’s get it over with, c’mon,” she slipped out of the car, and circled around to the driver’s side to tug Jess out, smiling softly at her. 

“No PDAs until we get this done with,” she murmured. “Unfortunately.”

Jo nodded, and followed Jess to the door, watching as she rang.

A few minutes later, the door opened, and an extremely pregnant woman opened the door. She wore a pair of knee length black pants, and a black and white striped blouse with a red ribbon tied in the sailor collar, which hung over her swollen belly, and her hair was done up in a high ponytail with a red kerchief over it. “…hello.” She said, quietly, looking slightly confused. “Can I help you?”

“…Ivy?” Jess asked, carefully.

“Yes, I am… can I help you?” she looked them up and down, looking entirely unimpressed.

Jess took a gamble. It was a stupid gamble, but it was worth a shot. “Ma’am, my name is Jessica Moore, and my companion is Joanna Harvelle. We are representatives of the local state police, conducting door to door interviews to alert the neighbourhood of a dire concern. It seems that three prisoners have escaped from the local prison.”

Ivy gasped, looking horrified. “That’s terrible!”

“I know,” she nodded, smiling softly at the woman, though she tried to look serious. It was hard, though, upon seeing her own grandmother, but so young. “It’s terrible. We need to know if there is any chance that you have seen any strangers in the area. Other than us, of course.”

“Oh, I, ah…” she frowned, tapping her lip. “No, I don’t think I have, but…”

“Maybe someone you know, but they were acting oddly? Someone in the area might have seen them, and is afraid to say so.” Jo spoke up.

“You know… Ed was acting oddly today!” Ivy looked up.

“Ed?”

“My mailman! He didn’t deliver any mail, not a whit, just walked around to every mailbox, and kept staring at the house… I thought perhaps he hadn’t had enough sleep the night before, but…” Ivy frowned slightly. “I was cleaning the kitchen, I didn’t think anything of it…”

“Do you know where this Ed might be, now?” Jess asked, considering her. It was hard not to stare.

“Probably at home.” She frowned. “He lives a block over, to the north.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Jess nodded, wishing she had a hat to tip at her own grandmother, as silly as that idea sounded. 

“Do you think you’ll find the escaped prisoners?” Ivy asked, concerned, wringing her hands. “I am close to having my first child, you see, and…”

“I don’t think it shall be a problem, ma’am,” Jo smiled at her, and nodded at the other woman.

“That is good,” she nodded, then smirked. Her eyes flickered, sharply, then a moment later, the pregnant woman was still leaning on the railing for the steps with polite calm, but her eyes were jet black and as dark and evil as sin.

“No!” Jess cried out, bolting forward, tugged back by Jo.

“You’re too late.” Ivy – or rather, the thing in Ivy’s body – drawled. “They’re going to find Ivy Worth on the bottom of the river in the morning, driven mad by the fear that she was being chased by black eyed monsters that wanted to kill her, so she killed herself and her unborn baby, because she just couldn’t do it anymore. It will be a great shame, but no one will worry that much about it, because, after all, Ivy’s granddaughter Jessica will never be alive to worry the world about it.”

“You son of a bitch, get out of her,” Jess snarled, fists clenched tightly. “Leave her alone!”

“Too late, pretty. So we won’t get you in hell again… but it won’t really matter anyways, will it?”

Jo had been digging in her pocket, as the women had been speaking, and had tugged out a small bottle, which was quite small, really, but full of liquid. Still, she cracked the lid off, quietly, and when the woman was looking at Jess, she flung it at her – water spilling in the woman’s face and across her chest, making her skin sizzle and burn as she screamed.

“No!” Jess wailed, throwing her arm out across Jo’s chest, trying to push her back. “Don’t!”

“She’s a demon!”

“She’s my grandmother!” she howled, terrified.

“Fools!” Ivy howled, and leapt at Jess.

Crying out in pain and surprise, she tumbled back to land on the hood of the car, shocked, and tried to stop the other woman’s fingernails from slashing at her eyes, crying out as she wrestled the pregnant woman’s hands away from her face. Ivy was strong – stronger than she was naturally, stronger than she had any right to be as she tried to slash at Jess’ skin.

“ _Crux sancta sit mihi lux, non draco sit mihi dux_!” Jo called, alarmed as she darted forward, tugging her chain and crucifix out from under her shirt, brandishing it at Ivy. “ _Vade retro satana nunquam suade mihi vana, sunt mala quae libas, ipse venena bibas!_ ”

Ivy screamed, head thrown back as black smoke billowed out of her mouth, then – before either of the women could do anything else – poured straight into Jess’ mouth.

She arched under the weight of the other woman, eyes wide as she tried to scream, lungs burning as though she was breathing in the smoke of a fire as the smoke exited her grandmother’s body completely, and surged fully into Jess, trying to take over. Every fibre of her body, every vein in her body seemed to burn, and her head hurt as though something was rocketing through it, trying to burrow into every little nook and cranny of her brain. It felt like the most invasive thing she had ever encountered, like her mind was being ripped open and full on raped. For a moment, she was sure that she would lose control of her mind, but then the tattoo on her collarbone burned like someone had just pressed red hot metal into her skin, and she screamed, the burning ripped out of her as the black smoke burst from her mouth, filling the sky.

She slumped to the hood of the beautiful car, panting.

Ivy lay on the sidewalk, gaping up at her, hand on her swollen belly, sobbing softly. 

“Are you all right?” Jo asked, alarmed as she touched her lover’s jaw and cheek gently, hands trembling. “It tried to possess you!”

“It failed,” she whispered, voice rasping.

“I know,” she murmured, gently, bending to kiss Jess, societal structures be damned. Who cared if everyone hated lesbians, her girlfriend had almost been fucking possessed.

“…my water just broke,” Ivy said quietly, and both women glanced at her in alarm. “…can you give me a ride to the hospital?”

Seven hours later, three hours into the fresh morning of August the third, Anna abruptly stood in front of the two blond women slumped in the armchairs in the hallway outside of the maternity ward, considering them. “You succeeded,” she said quietly.

“Mmm. I know.” Jess murmured softly.

“The demon tried to possess you,” she said, frowning as she considered them both.

“It failed,” Jo considered the angel, glowering slightly. She didn’t particularly like the angel, and her showing up to be all pompous ‘nasty demons tried to get you and you were almost too poor to resist it’ was not making her feel better at all. “Jess is stronger than all that.”

“We’ll go,” Anna said, firmly.

“Wait.” Jess held up a hand, shifting forward. “I want to talk to Ivy.”

“She’s your grandmother, Jess, you have to be careful what you say to her,” Anna said firmly. “To not risk spoiling things.”

“Says the woman who sent us back in time to talk to them,” Jess sighed, and bent to kiss Jo’s forehead. “Stay here, baby. I’ll be back in a second.”

Slipping into the quiet room, she hesitated beside the little wicker basket bassinet beside the bed, pondering the little baby inside. She was awfully pink, with a shock of dark hair on her little head, wrapped in a pink and yellow blanket, little eyes tightly shut.

“Hello,” Ivy said softly.

Jess glanced at the woman, flushed as she considered the familiar face, golden curls stuck with sweat to her forehead. “Hello.”

“Thank you.” She said, gently, shifting slightly in the seat, watching her. “For driving me here, for… saving me. My husband is away on business, we didn’t think she was going to be born for weeks, we thought it was going to be all right if I stayed home alone, but… I suppose… what happened… it stressed my body out.”

She nodded, fingertips resting on the edge of the mattress, considering Ivy. “Are you all right, now?”

Ivy nodded, quietly. “Thank you. For everything.”

“A pleasure.”

She smiled, looking worn out and weary. “I would love to repay your kindness one day, if I ever had the chance. Do let me know if you have a way.”

“There is, actually… it’s small, but…” Jess dug in her pocket, and offered the brand new key ring. “These are the keys to my car. Can you… take care of it for me? Drive it around every once in awhile, make sure it stays topped up with fluids, to make sure that its engine stays smooth and runs properly… and keep it clean and safe. And – this is going to sound insane… I’ve written an address on the key ring. On that date… in 2006… please leave the car in the parking garage there, with the keys in the visor.”

“…that does sound… odd.” Ivy admitted.

“Just trust me on this one, okay?” she smiled faintly. 

“Of course. Thank you, Jessica,” she murmured.

She smiled, and slipped out of the hospital room, calling for good luck as she headed back to Jo and Anna, who were glowering at everywhere exactly away from each other, passive aggressively trying to avoid each other’s eyes.

“I’m ready to go,” Jess said softly. 

And they were standing on the street again, dead noon instead of the middle of the night as it had been, and Jess blinked, startled, surprised that no one seemed to notice them as they walked and drove past. “Dammit!”

“What is it?” Jo blinked at her, concerned.

“We left our guns in 1958!” 

She roared in laughter.   
  
  
[Part Fifteen](http://sparrowshellcat.dreamwidth.org/42781.html)

\----

* * *

 


	15. sparrowshellcat | And Sing of Sweet Surrender - Part Fifteen

  


  


__You got a fast car  
But is it fast enough so we can fly away  
We gotta make a decision  
We leave tonight or live and die this way

Jess was pacing. 

She had gone to Jo’s bar, where she’d been working for a few months now, like she usually did after Jo’s hours were supposed to be done, to get a few drinks together and then head home, walking through the quiet dark winter streets, hand in hand, talking. They talked about anything as they walked through the dark streets of Duluth, taking the long walk back to the Star of the Sea Cathedral a different way each time, just to see what they could find.

But when she’d got there tonight, ready for another trip out, she had been shocked to find that the doors were wide open, and no one was there.

Freaking out more and more as she waited, Jess had tried calling her girlfriend’s cell every chance few minutes, hoping she would pick up. She never did. The worst part was that when she’d looked around, there were bullets stuck in the wooden pillars, and a huge knife on the counter, and blood on the floor, and loose bits of duct tape stuck to the bar. Every sign she knew of someone being attacked, tied up, and possibly injured. This scared her even more, considering the lifestyle they both led, and the demons and monsters and things that they had faced before.

Furious and terrified, Jess bolted with the doors slammed open, whipping her Desert Eagle out of the back of her jeans, pointing it directly at the door and the newcomers. 

“Put the gun away, baby,” Jo murmured, voice rough, slumping at one of the tables. She was alone, bloody and wet, muddy and a mess. “It’s just me. I promise.”

“Oh my god,” she scrambled forward, crushing the smaller woman against her chest, hugging her tightly into her collarbone, shaking as she buried her face in the other’s muddy hair, eyes squeezed tightly shut. “What happened, Jo, I was so fucking scared…”

“Demon,” she murmured. “Possessed an old friend, he went nuts…”

“Fuck!” she tugged her closer, alarmed as she crushed the other into her chest. “Are – are you okay?! Did you exorcise him, are you – “

“His brother took him. They’re going to Bobby’s… you remember I told you about Bobby?” she shifted slightly in Jess’ arms, pressing her forehead into Jess’ collarbone, trembling slightly. “They’re gonna take care of him… fuck… he shot his brother and I don’t know… I – I stitched him up and everything, I – “

“It’s okay,” she whispered, hands trembling as she stroked the other woman’s hair, scared. 

“I didn’t tell him you were here,” she whispered, voice breaking.

“It’s okay, Jo, I don’t care if the demons know I’m here, I don’t care at all, it’s just you and me, we can take care of things even with them knowing, it doesn’t matter… I – “

“His brother called him Meg, when he was possessed,” Jo whispered.

Jess froze, then started to tremble harder. “Meg.”

She nodded. “She knows we’re here.”

“We need to go home.”

“We can’t stay there,” Jo whispered, crying softly against the other woman’s collarbone, fingers tangled in the other’s t-shirt, holding her closer. “Not if Meg knows we’re here, if she knows we’re in the city, we have to get the fuck out of here, we have to go somewhere, please, we have to go somewhere else… fuck… Jess… I wanna go home. To the Roadhouse, I wanna see mom, I wanna see Ash, I wanna make sure they’re safe…”

Surprised, she stroked the other’s back, gently, and whispered, “Okay.”

“You – you’re sure?”

She nodded, kissing Jo’s forehead, softly. “Jo, baby, you know I will do anything for you. Of course I’ll bring you home.”

“You are not leaving me again,” she said firmly, twisting her fingers harder in the other’s shirt. 

“Are you sure your mother won’t… you know, shoot me, the second I try to walk in?”

“I talked to her.” She whispered. “She won’t shoot you.”

She sighed in relief.

“…right away, anyway,” she admitted, flushed.

Jess groaned softly. 

“C’mon… please… let’s go home. We need to get… everything. Fuck, your journal wall… I am so sorry that we’d have to leave that… I didn’t mean for – “

“Hey. Demons fuck everything up. It’s time I made things more portable anyway.”

“Okay,” Jo whispered, nodding quietly.

“Now let’s get the fuck out of here before I shoot something myself,” she grumbled, and tugged her girlfriend out of the bar.

\----

 

__We suffer mornings most of all  
Wake up all bleary eyed and sore  
Forgetting everything we saw  
(I’ll meet you in an hour at the car)

“I miss the church,” Jo murmured.

“Me too,” Jess sighed softly, eyes half closed as she relaxed as much as she could, leaning against the door of the back seat of their car, Jo laying on her chest, her head resting on her collarbone. “I mean, our bed was small, but it was at least a bed. Now we’re just back to the teeny tiny back seat again, and…”

“It’s not that teeny tiny,” she snorted, but wriggled a little, kissing Jess’ chin. “It’s just… cozy.”

She snorted. “In a tight way.”

“Mm. At least we’re almost to the Roadhouse again, right?”

Jo nodded, quietly, peering out the back window of the back seat at the starry sky over them, quietly. “Honestly, we’re only like two hours away, but… I wanted one night to just us, before we got home, before we had to talk to my mother and try to be normal and all that,” she shrugged, quietly. “Sorry. I know it’s awfully selfish, considering it’s a tiny back seat and it’s my mother we’re going to see, but still… I wanted some time with you.”

“Aww… I want time with you, too,” Jess laughed softly. “I would have rathered that we would have had this time together in a bed, but still.”

She laughed, softly, and shifted so that she could straddle the other’s thighs, bending slightly so that she was able to still sit up in the car, with the fabric covered ceiling just brushing the back of her head. “My mother won’t kill you, babe, I promise.”

“Mmm… she better not. But she probably also won’t let me share a bed with you.”

“She doesn’t have a choice about that one,” Jo grinned. “I’m an adult. I can sleep with whoever I want.”

Jess snorted. “I’m sure she’ll love that answer.”

“Relax, Jess,” Jo ordered, grinning as she rocked her hips back and forth slightly, teasingly. “My mother is going to love you. Maybe not right away, yeah, and who can really blame her considering you’re the naughty, naughty kidnapper that somehow managed to pervert her perfectly normal daughter – “ she grinned when Jess snorted derisively at that – “But eventually one day, my mom will come to love you too.”

“You’re sweet,” she snorted, again, trailing her fingers up the other’s thigh.

“I try.”

“Mmhmm. But just in case your mother does shoot me in the morning… wanna fog up a few windows?” Jess suggested, wiggling her eyebrows.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

Jess laughed.

She was not laughing however, the next morning, as she reluctantly stepped out of the car, slamming the car door with the look of a woman walking to the gallows on her face. “Are you really sure you want to go home?” she asked, nervously.

Jo glanced back at her, rolling her eyes. “Yes, Jess. We’ve talked about this.”

“I know. But bullet wounds hurt, you see…”

“Come on,” the younger woman said stubbornly, taking Jess’ hand in hers and tugging her towards the building, then in through the wooden doors of the Roadhouse. Still keeping a death grip on her nervous lover’s hand, Jo bellowed, “Mom?! Ash? I’m home!”

A moment later, the door to the kitchen opened, and Ellen stepped out, looking surprised. “Jo, is that you, I – what is she doing here?”

Jess swallowed.

“We talked about this, mom,” Jo said firmly. “Jess is fine. She keeps me safe.”

“I don’t want her here,” she crossed her arms, glowering at them both.

“I can go…” Jess started.

“No,” Jo said firmly. “Mother.”

Ellen heaved a heavy sigh, and muttered, “Just like John’s boys, I sweat. All right. Hello, Jess.”

“….hi Ellen.” She murmured, cheeks flushed.

The woman considered the pair of them seriously, then said, finally, “So my daughter tells me that she thinks she loves you.”

Jess’ eyes flicked to Jo first, who was bright pink.

“Hm.” Ellen frowned again, then said finally, “You can sleep on the couch.”

“Mom!” Jo squawked.

“The answer is no, young lady,” she pointed at Jo for a moment, then headed back into the kitchen.

“I’m an adult!” she called at her mother’s retreating back.

“Still a no!”

Jess laughed weakly. “Wow.”

“Shut up,” Jo grumbled, crossing her arms over her chest, grumpy.

\----

 

_ Pain on pain on play, repeating  
With the backup makeshift life in waiting _

Nightmares weren’t new for Jess. Sadly, she’d sort of gotten used to waking up with them. Honestly, it was weirder when she woke up in the morning and realized she’d had none. She’d even resorted to hex bags under her pillows, to see if she could get some relief, but apparently reliving your past in your sleep wasn’t the same thing as just having bad dreams caused by a jumbling of the days events and eating a pastrami and rye sandwich before bed. She often wondered, mostly idly, if other hunters had the same problems, too.

So there she sat on the Harvelle’s living room couch, in the small apartment over the bar, slowly turning the pages of the Daemonology book. It was funny, no matter how much outside research she did, she always seemed to come back to this book.

Turning the page past Leviathan – the green eyed demon – she glanced up at movement in the doorway.

“Morning, Jess,” Ellen said softly, wearily.

Blinking, Jess closed the book, and pushed it aside, standing. “Hey, Ellen… sorry, did the light wake you…?”

“No, sit down,” she waved away the concern, stepping into the room herself and settling on the end of the couch, sighing softly. “Just one of those nights where no one can sleep, I guess.”

Jess nodded, watching the other.

“Sorry about… earlier. The hard feelings.” Ellen shifted slightly, clearing her throat awkwardly. “It’s just that Jo is my baby girl. I’m kind of protective. Over protective.”

“If it makes you feel any better,” Jess murmured, “So am I.”

“I’ve noticed,” she smiled, folding her hands on her stomach, considering Jess quietly for a moment, then bolted up again, heading into the little kitchenette beside the living room, bending to dig into the fridge, and offered Jess a bottle of beer before sitting beside her on the couch. “It’s the only reason I’m willing to be… all right with this.”

“Thanks,” Jess murmured, flushed, relieved to hear that as she took a long pull of the cold beer, relaxing.

“Mm.” Ellen sighed, staring off into space for a few moments. 

“She’s a great woman, Ellen.” Jess said softly.

“I know. Scary, huh? She was my little girl only yesterday, and now… now she’s a big strong tall woman, and I just… it sprung on me, I suppose.” She sighed softly, sipping at her beer. “And not only is she a big brave woman, but she’s gone and fallen in love. With another woman.”

Jess glanced at her, frowning slightly. “…is it because I’m a woman?”

“…no,” she admitted, considering that thought. “No. It’s not because you’re a woman. That sure caught me off guard though, believe you me. Had no idea my girl was into… well, girls.”

“I don’t think she always has been,” she admitted, flushed.

Ellen snorted. 

“What… s’true.” She shrugged, smirking slightly as she drank. “But I’m glad that even part of her did, because… she’s my everything.”

“I know.” She nodded, looking over at her, smiling softly. “Except that you left her for seven months.”

“Did she ever tell you why?”

“No,” Ellen considered that, frowning slightly.

“The demons told me that if I was there, around here, she was in danger.” Jess admitted. “So I wanted to make sure that she was never in danger by being far away from her, if I could be. I’ve warded myself as much as I can – I have anti-possession tattoos, I’ve been blessed by some of the most blessed priests in the nation, for awhile, I even drank nothing but holy water, hoping to just make myself as warded as I could be. But I just… I was never sure if I’d done enough to save her.”

“She’s my baby girl, Jess, but I have taught her well.” She frowned slightly, drinking another deep swallow of her beer. “Jo can take care of herself.”

“I’ve learned that.” She murmured, smiling at the woman. “It’s… good. Because…”

“Because what?” she asked, frowning slightly.

“Do you believe in angels, Ellen?” Jess asked softly, peeling the label off of her beer, then she took a deep swallow of it, trying not to be jittery. 

“I’ve never seen one,” Ellen considered that. “But I’m open to the idea that they might exist.”

“I’ve met one,” she whispered.

Shifting forward on the couch slightly, to consider the other woman, she asked, “Really?”

“Mmhmm. Woman named Anna, apparently she’s an angel. And… yeah. She’s an angel. All terrifying power and awe and majesty. Scary as fu – hell. Scary as hell. But she… saved me.”

“From?” she asked, frowning slightly as she considered her.

“Hell.” 

“I’m sorry?” Ellen frowned, brows furrowed.

“Hell.” Jess said again, and tugged the overlong sleeves of Sam’s old sweatshirt off her hand so that the other could see the handprint scar on her wrist. “I died two years ago, Ellen, and I was thrown into hell because the demon who killed me thought it would be funny. Or something. And then this angel, Anna, took me, and hauled me out of hell. To – to save someone from the same fate.”

She swore, shaking her head as she considered the other woman. “How do you save this person?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted, softly. “But I have to save him from hell.”

“Just don’t hurt my baby girl.”

“Yes ma’am,” she smirked slightly, then jumped when the phone rang. “Shit, that scared me!”

Ellen laughed, and scooped up the phone, frowning as she answered, then listened. “Woah, slow down Dean… slow down…”

Jess blinked, watching the other woman, listening. Funny, there weren’t many men named Dean unless they were little boys these days, having parents who were big Harry Potter fans.

“What, no, Ash isn’t here, he’s downstairs. I took the night off… yes, Dean, a woman can take the night off when she’s the owner of the place… Jo and Ash are running the bar tonight.” She frowned as she listened for a few moments, then glanced at Jess, scratching her jaw. “No, Ash didn’t mention anything… I’ll go see if I can find him, one minute…” 

Ellen stood, and hesitated. “No, just hold on a second Dean… Dean?” 

She winced, holding the phone away from her ear for a moment. There was some shouting in the background, loud enough that even sitting on the couch beside the woman, who was standing, Jess could hear it. There was silence again, more shouting, more silence, then abruptly Ellen tugged the phone away from her head again. “Shit, Dean calm – what?”

“Ellen?” Jess asked softly, standing, concerned. “Is everything okay?”

The other woman was pale, trembling slightly as she met her eyes, and shook her head.

Jess leaned a little closer to her, and she could hear the panicked man on the other line shouting, “Sam is missing, Ellen! I just walked into the restaurant and there is blood everywhere and Sam is gone!”

“Sam?” Jess repeated, blood draining out of her face. 

Ellen nodded, not even really hearing her, focusing on the phone. “There sulfur or anything, Dean, some kind of demon trace?”

“I don’t know,” he was saying, sound absolutely terrified. “I – yes. Windowsills, fuck… sulfur, a demon took him, son of a bitch, Ellen, a demon took my fucking brother! Again!”

“Ellen,” she said again, eyes wide, guts twisting. “Sam? Sam Winchester?”

Ellen’s eyes flicked back to Jess again, and she hesitated, then nodded again. “Yeah.”

“Oh my god.” She slumped to sit on the edge of the couch, eyes wide. Her boyfriend. Her very ex-boyfriend, now. The one she’d gone looking for for so long at one point, the one she’d died because of… apparently, he was friends with her girlfriend’s mother. Well holy fuck. 

“Call Bobby,” she ordered, eyes on Jess still. “Now.”

A few moments later, Ellen hung up the phone, and set it on the side table, sitting firmly beside Jess on the couch, shifting closer to her and grabbing the other woman’s hands, holding the trembling fingers tightly in her own, considering her seriously. “You met the boys before?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“Jess, what are you hiding?” she asked, seriously.

Looking up, trembling, Jess said quietly, “Don’t tell Jo. Please.”

She hesitated. “What is it, Jess?”

“Sam Winchester. Sam is the man I was brought back from hell to save. The angels saved me from hell to save Sam Winchester.” Her voice caught, and she fought tears. “I almost married him, Ellen. Sam was my boyfriend, and I died because the yellow eyed demon was trying to torture him.”

Ellen groaned softly, closing her eyes. “Oh.”

Jess keened. 

“You’re that Jess.” She murmured, considering the other woman, concerned. “Shit. Well, this complicates things more than a little, doesn’t it?”

She moaned, slumping back. “Please don’t tell Jo.”

“You had better tell her.”

She whimpered slightly, and nodded, and finally stood, running her hands through her hair. “Yeah. Fuck. She knows him too, doesn’t she?”

“She’s hunted with them a few times.”

“Nnngh, even better… time to explain to my girlfriend that I used to date her friend. Great.”

Ellen smirked slightly. “Yep. Now I got a boy to find.” 

Padding down the short hallway in her bare feet, Jess slipped into Jo’s room, hesitating.

Her girlfriend was laying in her bed, golden hair spilled out around her on the pillow like a softly glowing halo, and she slept quietly, lips parted slightly, eyes closed, eyelashes a dark sooty shadow on her cheeks. She looked like she’d tumbled from heaven to land gently in that bed, like she’d floated out of the clouds. Her chest rose and fell gently as she breathed, and Jess really didn’t want to interrupt her sleep, didn’t want to disturb the sweet sleeper, but she needed to. Apparently.

Crawling into the other woman’s bed, carefully, she lay beside her, wrapping her arm gently around the other’s waist, holding her close. 

“Mmm…” Jo shifted slightly in her sleep, half waking as she blinked up at her. “Hi.”

“Hi baby,” she murmured softly.

“My mom is gonna kill you if she finds you in here,” she murmured, but smiled as she squirmed closer into Jess, kissing her jaw. 

“Actually, she sent me here. Told me to come in here and talk to you… I… Jo. Do you know Sam Winchester?” her voice wavered as she said his name.

“Yeah.” She nodded, rubbing at her eyes. “I grew up around his father, John, and… I’ve hunted with them. A few times. They were the ones I was with when I ran into that serial killing ghost, he was the one who got possessed and attacked me in Duluth… yeah. I know Sam Winchester. Why, do – wait, do you know Sam Winchester? Really?”

Jess swallowed. “I dated him.”

Jo blinked, then her eyes widened sharply. “Oh my god. I never made the connection… you died when a demon tried to hurt your boyfriend… his girlfriend died when yellow eyes tried to torture him… oh my god, you died because of Sam?! SAM?! And you dated him?”

She winced slightly at the horrified reaction. “….yeah.”

“He is nothing like me!”

Jess blinked at Jo, surprised. “Uh… yeah… you are nothing alike. Completely different.”

“So… am I your type, or was he?” she frowned.

She snorted, and pressed her forehead against the other woman’s, just holding her close, kissing her nose softly. “You. Without a doubt, Joanna Beth Harvelle… you are my type. And even though I’m going to hell… until then, you’re mine. And I’m yours.”

Jo laughed softly.

\----

 

__It doesn’t hurt me  
You wanna feel how it feels?  
You wanna know, know that it doesn’t hurt me?  
You wanna hear about the deal I’m making?  
You be running up that hill  
You and me be running up that hill

Sitting at the bar, Jess sipped at a whiskey, sitting sideways so that her left forearm rested on the bar. She watched her girlfriend as she walked around the large room, slipping between the little tables and laughing and smiling as she served the customers. Jess was honestly surprised the other was able to smile and laugh as much as she was, considering how worried she was about Sam. It was still sort of surreal, realizing how they both knew the same man.

But Jo was getting information from the hunters in the bar, if she could, so at least that was something. 

Ash darted up beside Jess at the bar, thumping his computer on the bar beside her. She was surprised that it even ran, considering how he treated it and considering that it was barely even in one piece. Flicking it open, he typed rapidly, then swung with a bit of a dramatic flair, flicking his hair behind his shoulders as he looked Jess up and down. “You’re the one, right? Jo’s girl? Sammy boy’s ex?”

She hesitated, then nodded. 

“Awesome,” he grinned briefly at her, wiggling his brows. “You two ever think about recording some of yer stuff in the, you know, bedroom? Might make some really good money that way, if you ever wanted to try it.”

“No.” she said, flatly.

“Just something to think about.” He pointed out, then pointed at the screen. “Have you seen this?” 

“What is it?” she leaned closer, considering the map he’d pulled up. “Chicago?”

“Something big is coming there, few years from now, it’s a big deal,” he frowned slightly, typing rapidly. Numbers scrolled by on the screen, and she blinked, trying to catch it as she watched, not really understanding what it meant. “I called Dean, to let him know… hope to god he calls me soon, something bad is gonna happen if he doesn’t know about this… looks like all the omens are pointing there.”

“What’s gonna happen in Chicago, Ash?” she asked, frowning as she considered the screen.

Ash’s eyes flicked to her again, then he lowered his voice. “Sam’s a vessel.”

“For what?” she asked quietly.

He hesitated. “Let’s just say… he really needs to not be in hell right now. He needs to be out, he needs to be saved.”

“Ellen said they found him, but he was – “

“I know.” He nodded. “Someone needs to save that kid.”

Jess glanced away from his computer to her glass, then up to the anti-demons symbols above the bar, eyes narrowing at a small cigar box on the shelf there. “Can I take that, Ash?”

He glanced where she was looking. “Yeah, sure.”

“Thanks,” she murmured, rounding the bar, and reaching up to pick it up, coming back to him. Setting it on the bar, she peered inside, relieved that it was blank, and thought back to the ‘layman’s demon lexicon’ she had put up on the cathedral wall, trying to remember every detail of one of the entries. “Ash… who is Sam a vessel for?”

He hesitated. “Well, I’m not sure, but I think he’s – “

There was a crash, and a bottle slammed on top of Ash’s head, and he slumped forward onto the ground, like a rock.

Jess bolted to her feet, gaping at the hunter who had cracked the bottle over his head in horror. “What the fuck was that for? Seriously! He was – “ she halted abruptly.

The hunter’s eyes were black.

Looking away sharply, she glanced to the side, hoping for some assistance, but the man beside him had stood as well, eyes black.

One by one, men and women around the room stood, eyes jet black.

“Jo?!” Jess howled, horrified.

A gunshot echoed through the room, then another, and Jo burst through the crowd of demons, who didn’t seem to be attacking, but rather just standing there, looking at them. Ellen burst out from behind the bar, pair of rifles in hand, and thrust one into Jess’ hands, then bent to struggle to pick Ash up. “What the hell is going on here… this place is warded to the hilt…”

Jess bent to help her, Ash’s limp body between them. “They’re just watching us…”

“This is… terrifying,” Jo murmured, then tried, “ _Exorcizamus te_.”

As one, each of the demons began rushing towards them, and Ellen let out a shout of horror as they started forward, trying to get Ash – and themselves – out of the crowd and away from the demons. Jess started firing into the crowd, grimly, prepping the shotgun between each round, shoving fresh shells in with a strangely practiced ease. She fired until she was out of ammunition, then began just slamming each one with the stock of her gun, though they just seemed to keep coming.

Snatching salt shakers off the tables, she swung her arm hard, trying to hit each one with salt, and started screaming, “ _Christo Christo Christo_!” just to at least delay them enough to get through.

Somewhere behind them, a fire had been started on the bar, and it started to grow. The door was finally getting closer, and just as it seemed they were safe, one of the demons snagged Ash, and hauled them back away from them.

“No!” Ellen howled, reaching for him, but more demons slid between them and him, and the fire rose even higher. 

“Mom, we have to go!” Jo cried, shoving the doors open with her shoulders. 

“Ash!” the woman screamed, trying to reach for him.

“Mom!”

Jess hooked her arm around the woman’s waist like a linebacker, and shoved her finally out the door, half tackling her as she forced all three of them outside, then ran as fast as she could towards the car. Ellen looked completely at a loss as she gaped up at the bar, almost catatonic, which was unusual for the usually very together woman. Jo helped Jess, though, digging in the back seat of the car with her, and they both grabbed a sack of salt, and rushed back towards the building, slashing salt in front of the doorways and the windows, forcing those inside to stay there.

Finally, building warded, they retreated to the safety of the car. Jess left it running, just in case they had to flee, but that didn’t seem necessary as they watched the building burn.

Jess slumped against the hood, watching.

Ellen looked too shocked to react. Her eyes were wide and glazed as she watched the flames devouring her home, her business. Her customers. Her surrogate son.

Jo was sobbing softly as she curled into Jess, shaking.

“They came to kill us,” Jess whispered, watching as the flames licked at the worn name ‘Roadhouse’ on the front. “They sent demons to kill us. All because… because Ash knew what was coming. He said… he said he knew…”

Ellen let out a shaking whimper.

Jess closed her eyes, and turned to look at Jo, pressing a soft kiss to her temple. “Jo, baby… take care of your mom. I have to do something, to – to make sure this stops, okay?”

“Don’t leave,” Jo tangled her fingers in the other’s shirt, looking horrified. “Please…”

“I have to.” She whispered, gently disentangling her fingers, and kissing her temple again. “Take the car. Get her somewhere safe. “I’ll call you soon, to meet up with you, okay?”

“Okay,” she whispered, face twisting into tears for a moment, tears streaming down her sooty cheeks. “I can’t lose you now…”

“I know.” She whispered, hugging her. 

She rounded the car to dig in the massive trunk, shifting items, weapons out of the way as she dug in under the spare tire, making sure she had found everything she was looking for. She had wanted the cigar box from inside the trunk, but the little tupperware bin that had been used for leftover Chinese a few weeks ago was good enough. Tossing in one of the Polaroid’s Jo had taken a few months ago last, she shoved the little plastic bin into the pocket of her sweatshirt, and slammed the trunk shut. 

“I’ll call you back in a few minutes,” she promised. 

“Kiss me,” Jo said quickly, grabbing the other woman’s sweater as she was about to pass her, looking terrified.

Jess nodded, and kissed her lover firmly, possessively, then murmured, “I promise. I’ll call you in a few minutes.”

She nodded, tears blinding her brown eyes.

Sighing, Jess headed out into the trees, marching down the road as she hurried way from the by now inferno that was the roadhouse, and broke into a run beyond the property line.

Jess had no idea how long she ran for, but when she finally dropped to her knees in the gravel roadway in the middle of a field, her lungs were burning and her heart pounding, and she couldn’t smell or see smoke as far as she looked in any direction. Panting, she ended up on her hands and knees in the dusty crossroad, and used the side of her hand to scoop up rocks and dirt, brushing it aside, quickly, until she was able to grab a large rock and haul it out of the ground. Nails cracked and bleeding, she set the Tupperware bin where the rock had been in the hole, and brushed gravel and dirt over it, then stood, wiping her dusty hands on her jean covered thighs.

She looked around, quickly, trembling, and called, “Hello?”

“You called?”

Jess spun, gasping as she looked up at the woman standing just outside the crossroads themselves, thumbs hooked in the pockets of her jeans. She was pale and dark haired, with almost impish features. “Are you – ?”

The woman’s eyes flickered black, and she smirked slightly. “Long time no see, babe.”

“I don’t understand.” Jess took a step back, swallowing. She knew that she had summoned the demon, she knew that it was her that called her, but she didn’t really know how to deal with this. It alarmed her, to be honest. 

“I had an unfortunate accident.” She drawled, stepping closer. “Your ex killed my meatsuit. So I took him for a ride, but they got me outta that one, too. So I found a new one. It’s me, sweetpea, don’t you recognize me?” The demon grinned, raising a single brow. “It’s Meg.”

“Oh fuck.” She backed up again.

“Where you going, Jess, baby?” Meg was abruptly behind her, and Jess gasped, startled. “You’re the one who called me here. You’re the one who wanted to make the deal. So do tell. What did you want?”

Jess swallowed. “Sam.”

“Oh really?” she drawled. “Here I thought you’d gone all lesbo, baby… you really want yer Sammy back?”

“No.” She swallowed again, hands trembling hard. “No. I want him alive. And I don’t want him to know that it was me that saved him.”

“Oh?” she frowned, cocking her head to the side, slightly, considering that. They were in contact, a lot of the demons, and she knew that at that very moment, as Jess was standing there in front of her, chest heaving, Dean Winchester was standing in a different crossroads, hands shaking as he demanded the same thing. She considered that, thoughtfully, then smirked. Maybe… maybe two souls. For Sam Winchester? Two might do it.

“Sam needs to be alive.” Jess said again, firmly. “Please. Meg.”

She stepped closer, and purred, as she nuzzled slightly at the other woman’s jaw, “Is that so? What will you give me, baby girl?”

She swallowed. “The usual deal. My soul.” Her voice cracked. “You come take it in ten years.”

“For Sam Winchester?” she barked in laughter. “No ten years. One.”

Jess closed her eyes. She wanted more than that. She needed more than that. She had been hoping to get the ten years that she was supposed to get, because, honestly, a hunter’s life was insanely dangerous. She figured a decade was a long time for a woman in this lifestyle, and that if she took the ten year deal, Jo might never know. But with a year… 

But Anna had said she needed to save Sam from hell.

And Ash had said…

It was like a last request, almost. 

She nodded, breath hitching slightly as she opened her eyes to consider the black eyed woman in front of her. “Okay. One year. Okay. D-deal.”

“Good,” Meg grinned, then for the first time since she’d met her, kissed her. Hard. 

Jess whimpered as the other surged into the kiss, possessive and demanding, claiming all of her, then finally stepped back, sighing softly. “Mmm…” Meg grinned, reaching up to brush her fingertips over her lips. “I told you I was saving that for something special.”

“Fuck off,” she whispered, eyes bright with tears.

“Mmm. Enjoy your year, babe. I, personally, am really looking forward to a year and a day from now…” Meg fingerwalked her long fingers up the other woman’s collarbone for a moment, then tapped the other’s lower lip with her index finger. “I can’t wait to get you back into hell with me again.”

Jess quickly backed up again. “You got your deal, you’re getting my soul. You don’t get me now.”

“Yes’m.” she laughed.

Then Meg was gone, and Jess’ shoulders slumped again, shaking. Finally, she tugged her phone out of her pocket, fingers trembling as she dialed, then held it to her ear. “H-hi babe. Yeah… it’s okay. It’s okay, yeah, I’m… um… at the corner of… um… county roads four and seventeen…”   
  
  
[Part Sixteen](http://sparrowshellcat.dreamwidth.org/43231.html)

\----

 

  



	16. sparrowshellcat | And Sing of Sweet Surrender - Part Sixteen

 

__I’ve crossed the last line  
From where I can’t return  
Where every step I took in faith  
Betrayed me

“Sing to me,” Jess murmured gently, voice sing song as she trailed her fingers slowly over her lover’s stomach, gently. “Sing to me of sweet surrender and love and happiness, Jo.”

“And sweet… sweet surrender… is all I have to give,” Jo sang softly, inexpertly but carefully. 

“That’s not happy,” Jess murmured softly.

“I know,” she admitted, shifting slightly on the little ratty bed, shifting closer to her lover. The mattress under them, just covered by a car blanket that they had been keeping in the back seat, was moldy and water stained, and inside a dusty old trailer, but at least it was a place to lay their heavy heads. They’d been on the run for two weeks, just trying to get as far away from everything as possible when Ellen had parted ways with them to help Bobby with the Winchesters. She kept in contact with them, to let them know that Sam was alive and well, that everything was muddled. She’d let them know about the release of the demons, and they were frantically mopping things up, now. 

Jess and Jo had exorcised every demon they could find, desperately, but things were messier than expected. 

“No rest for the wicked,” Jess murmured, quietly. 

“Was that not rest, that we just had?” Jo smirked faintly, resting her head in the hollow of the other’s shoulder, brushing her fingertips across the other’s breasts. “No wait, that was hot, sweaty messy sex. Much more enjoyable than rest.”

She laughed softly, trailing her fingertips down the other’s spine. “Mm. Finally.”

“Yeah, no kidding.” She groaned, closing her eyes for a moment. “ I was so sure we were going to just drop somewhere before we managed to get a rest. Hopefully things will settled down a little, soon, so we can find a motel soon. This particular little place is kinda… skeezy.”

Jess snorted, stretching. “I dunno… it’s got a nice foresty back yard, and no nosy neighbours…”

“No electricity or running water…”

She snickered. “Is that really necessary?”

“Yes.” Jo said firmly. “Yes, absolutely, I fucking need showers.”

“Oh, good point, you’re gorgeous all dripping wet and scrubbed clean,” Jess sighed softly, grinning at her, brushing her hair back gently. 

“Are you okay?”

“Mm?” she looked up, quietly. “What do you mean?”

“You’ve been… quiet. Ever since that night… the fire,” Jo murmured, brushing her fingers over the other’s collarbone, gently, trailing her fingertips over the anti-possession tattoo. “I know it was bad, but… ever since you left…”

“I know,” she whispered.

“What’d you do, Jess?” Jo looked up to meet her eyes. “Please… Jess. If I’m all to you that you say I am… you’ll tell me. What’d you do?”

Brushing Jo’s hair back, Jess cupped her lover’s jaw, considering her. “Maybe you don’t want to know.”

“Believe me, Jess,” her voice cracked. “I want to know.”

“Do you remember… what Anna told me?”

“That she took you out of hell so that you could save Sam,” she said softly, considering that. “Because saving Sam meant that you were going to be saving… everyone. She said you had to get him out of hell.”

“Yeah,” Jess murmured.

“So?”

“So I did what she asked. I think.” She keened softly, closing her eyes. “I – I made a deal.”

“You didn’t.” Jo bolted up, alarmed.

“I did,” she whispered.

“You – you sold your soul, didn’t you?!” she demanded, bolting up. “You sold your fucking soul and – and – you didn’t even ask me first?!”

“Jo,” she caught her lover’s hands, squeezing them gently. “Look at me.”

She keened softly, but did.

“I – I love you, Jo.” She said, firmly, holding her hands tightly, meeting her eyes properly. “I do. I love you. With every… fibre of me. But even though I want nothing more than to grow old with you, and sit on a front porch, blue haired and happy… we’re hunters. And apparently we have a destiny bigger than… most peoples. And apparently, for me, according to the angels, my destiny includes being the one to sell my soul to save Sam. I’m not… I didn’t do it for him, Jo. I did it for… everyone.”

Jo’s lip was quivering. “You sold your soul to save the planet?”

“Well, the people on it, anyway,” she shrugged crookedly, wiping at her eyes. “I – if there had been another way, I never would have… but I want to save… everyone. Them all. This is what I had to do. You and me… I know it ain’t much, but we have a year.”

“Only a year?! It’s supposed to be ten – !”

“I know.” She said, quickly, squirming to sit up properly, reaching up to brush the tears under Jo’s eyes away with the pad of her thumb. “I know. Just… just a year. Maybe because I’ve been there already, and I’m not special enough, anymore, or something. I’m sorry. We’ll… we’ll make it good. I was thinking… we could quit.”

“Quit.” Jo repeated.

She nodded, quietly. “We could.”

“We can’t… quit.”

“Not for our last year together?” she asked. “I’m not saying we have to, babe, I just… I thought I’d offer it.”

“I’d love to have just a year of nothing but you and me. To not go out, to not risk our lives.” She said softly, stroking the other’s jaw, gently. Jo looked intense as she said it, though. “I’d love to just… have sex with you every day, and spend hours in the tub, and watch shit tv together and do nothing useful or important or helpful for the world. But I know that if I did… I would feel guilty. The whole time. For squandering what you had left.”

“Jo…” Jess whispered, kissing her gently, “You are all I have left. You are it. The world can go fuck itself.”

She hesitated. “Then we quit.”

“Okay.” She whispered, and kissed her again. “Let’s quit.”

\----

 

“I like your ending.” 

Jude looked up, blinking slightly. The manuscript in front of her was marked all over with red ink, as though none of the lines on that particular page could be left the way it was, and blinked up at Sera, who was leaning in the kitchen doorframe in her pajamas. “Huh?”

“The ending.” She walked into the room, properly. “Of your fanfic. I like it.”

“I ended it?” she blinked.

“Yeah.” Sera hesitated. “Didn’t you? Jess has a year left before the crossroad deal catches up to her and Meg comes to get her, so the girls quit. That… ends it, right?”

“Uh…” Jude glanced at the notebook that sat just beyond the manuscript she was working on. “….no.”

“No?” she repeated, and Sara sat across from her at the table, tugging the notebook closer to her. Flicking through the pages, she considered the messy doctor-like handwriting, trying to read it, then started flicking through the pages. “What is this?”

“That’s… the raw format.” She hesitated, scratching at her jaw, fidgeting as she watched her best friend flick. “It’s not… finished…”

“You wrote everything.” She gaped at the pages.

“I didn’t – not everything…”

“Jess goes to the bathroom, Jo buys orange juice at the grocery store, they watch Die Hard and you describe the fucking movie… oh my god, Jude, it’s like you just… wrote down every single thing they do!”

“It’s not finished.” She said again, flushed. “I – I have to cut it down.”

“This isn’t normal!” Sera brandished the notebook at her. “Do you do this all the time?! Is this what you do?!”

She flushed. “Not…”

Sera bolted up, and started moving back towards her best friend’s bedroom, ignoring Jude’s yelps of horror and alarm as she followed her. Marching to the huge bookcase against Jude’s wall, she scooped one of the notebooks off of it, and flicked through it, then thrust it at her friend. “This is another one! The same!”

“I’m not – I didn’t write everything…” she protested, wincing as her friend tore another one off the shelf. 

“Every one!”

“That’s how I think…” she murmured, squirming slightly, flushed. 

“I thought you were done!”

“I can’t stop, Sera… not until the story is done. My head hurts when I don’t… I start to… it has to be done. If I don’t write, my migraine’s get worse, and I just want to drown the shrieking with silence, and… writing it down is the only way I can stop the pain. I have to.”

“This isn’t healthy.”

“I know.” She murmured. “Do you want me to… to move out or something?”

“Alone? Are you fucking kidding me? First. You are my editor.” Sera pointed at her. “You can’t bail on me, or these books will never be published, and you know we have enough trouble with this as it is, dammit. Second… I can’t afford the rent on this place alone, and you know that, too. Third. I don’t trust you to be alive and safe if you aren’t here! All right?!”

“…okay?” Jude murmured, swallowing. 

“Damn. If this were original fic… I’d have tried to publish it.” She muttered. “Never seen an author lose themselves so much to their work before. Damn.”

Jude snorted, softly, flushed.

\----

 

__He said to lose of my life or lose my love,  
That’s the nightmare I’ve been running from  
So let me hold you in my arms awhile  
I was always careless as a child

A year. 

A year wasn’t very long. But it was a good year. A beautiful year. A gorgeous year of calm, and serenity, and joy. They laughed often, they loved hard. 

And during the year, Jess carefully transcribed her papers and notes and all the extensive information she had gathered over the last year into a thick, leather bound book. The Daemonology text had been lost in the Roadhouse fire, but at least she had this left, to give to Jo, for when the other woman got to go back out to hunt after Jess was gone. She wanted to make sure this information was left. Some hunters had to learn the truth about hell.

Jess had thought she’d accepted her fate. Realized her destiny. Was prepared to face her own mortality.

But now that the year was almost up – three days, thirteen hours, twenty one minutes remaining – the very last thing she wanted to do was to crawl back into that pit. She wanted to be saved. She hadn’t seen Anna since before the sacrifice itself, so she didn’t think the angel was likely to come back to help now. It was just the two of them, and this was… she did not want this to be her fate.

But it was hard to face that idea. After all… she’d done it for a reason. And she had been the one who sold her soul, after all.

But Jo had been dropping, well, less than subtle hints about wanting her to live, about wanting her to stay with her forever. That wasn’t really making it easier.

Finally, when Jo suggested she might have found someone that could save her, Jess reluctantly agreed.

“Here,” Jo offered her a small hex bag.

Jess hesitated, then tugged her jacket the rest of the way on before taking it, carefully, and tugging the drawstrings open so she could look inside. “This is goofer dust.”

“Mmmhmm,” she nodded, looking very serious.

“This is the stuff that holds hell hounds back,” she held up the bag, frowning.

“I know,” Jo whispered. “Please?”

Jess sighed softly, and shoved the hex bag in her jacket pocket, reluctantly. “Just… whatever happens, Jo, remember that I brought this on myself. I did it. It’s my own goddamn fault, remember?”

“I know. But…” 

“But you don’t want it to be,” she murmured, kissing her lover’s forehead, gently. “I know. Just remember that… when I start seeing the dogs, instead of just hearing them… there’s nothing you can do. I can see the demons already as it is. Just a couple days.”

“Three,” she said quickly. 

“Okay,” Jess smiled faintly, brushing Jo’s hair back, gently. “I just… don’t want to give you any false hope. I want to take care of you, but… hell, I sold my soul, babe.”

“No more sad.” She ordered. “I’ve had enough of being depressed. Okay?”

She nodded, obediently. 

“I have two stops,” she murmured. “Okay? We’re going to try…”

“Just be careful, or Meg… Meg’ll come.”

Jo nodded, and tugged Jess out of their motel room. It was their home, now. They had filled it with their things, managed to create an actual home, with their clothing everywhere, with material possessions like neither of them had had before this year, like movies and video games and things that made their lives easier and happier. It was the lifestyle of the poor but happy, not the lifestyle of a hunter. For once.

Jess left it with a long lingering look. Just in case.

It took two and a half days, to visit the possible saviors Jo was hoping would keep her Jess with her forever, and neither of them had any possible cures. One had been a complete sham who just wanted to ‘help’ for a good pile of money, and the other had been genuinely devoted to helping, but was, sadly, completely useless. As they drove, Jo in the driver’s seat for once, Jess kept flinching as she spotted demons everywhere. And when she would try to focus on anything now, there seemed to be black shadows at the edges of her vision. Dogs.

“She’s coming, Jo,” she said, gently.

“No.” Jo’s hands were shaking on the steering wheel, knuckles white as she clutched at it. “Jess, I don’t want to lose you, I don’t want you to leave me…”

“I know. I don’t either, but… I have to.”

She keened. “We can hide, we can put the goofer dust out, we can…”

“Just find a motel, Jo,” she whispered, glancing at the clock. Three hours. “I want to rest before… before. With you. Okay?”

She nodded, quickly. 

Feeling like everything was rushing past in a whirl, Jess stood at the massive picture window in the front of their motel room, the world seeming to swirl and spin around her like she was standing on a carousel that someone had managed to turbo charge. She was trying to remain calm and collected. Honestly, Jess had expected that to be hard, as though the black demon dogs she could see creeping closer through the bushes in front of the motel would make her panic, but… they didn’t seem to bother her anymore. They were there. So they were going to come. That’s what they did.

Jo stood behind her, hugging her from behind, arms wrapped around the other’s waist, forehead pressed against the other’s shoulders. “I could throw myself in front of them,” she whispered. “And stop them.”

“Not happening, Joanna Beth,” Jess said firmly, smiling faintly as she closed her eyes. 

“I just don’t want to lose you.”

“I know,” she murmured. “I don’t want to lose you either, Jo. I really don’t.”

Her hands trembled on the other woman’s stomach, and Jo whispered, “I know it makes me sound like an ungrateful clod, but… I’d rather have you alive, than defy the apocalypse.”

She laughed softly, opening her eyes again. 

Her breath caught slightly. Jo couldn’t see, because she was behind her, face pressed into Jess’ back, but Jess could see the massive black dog, paws on the glass, tongue lolling, red eyes focused directly on her. When he saw that she was looking, an almost evil grin crossed over his face – who knew that dogs could grin? – and slammed his head into the glass of the picture window.

Both women howled as the glass shattered, pieces flying towards them, slashing into their arms. Jess threw her arms up over her face, but the massive paws of the hell hound slammed into her shoulders and threw her back towards the ground.

Jo scrambled across the room and scooped up the rifle, firing randomly at a demon she couldn’t see.

“Fuck!” Jess cried, rolling out of the way of the demon, clutching at her arm. The salt Jo was firing randomly had hit her, not the demon, and she winced, then yowled in horror when the hell hound spun from her towards Jo, pissed that it was being shot at. “Stoppit! Stop firing, Jo!”

“No!” she howled, firing again, crying.

“Don’t! I don’t want it to get you!” she body checked the hell hound, knocking it aside and snapping the hell hound’s attention right back to her.

“Jess, no - !” Jo bolted forward, trying to stop the inevitable.

She never got the chance.

The hell hound lunged, massive jaws crunching down on Jess’ shoulder, and she howled in pain as it yanked her down to the ground, and shook her, hard. 

Screaming, Jess struggled against the massive jaws, nails clawing and slashing at the demon’s face as she strained to get out of its grip. Her every nerve was on fire, and she could feel blood bubbling out of her mouth, trailing down her jaw and throat, down her chest. She’d heard once before that you can feel when you’re going to die, that even if you get close a thousand times before, the final moment before your death, you could tell. And she could feel it, could feel the life slipping out of her as she looked up at her girlfriend, who was screaming and sobbing and shooting at the hell hound again.

Fingers slipping off of the demon’s muzzle, stopping her struggle to get free, Jess tried to reach for Jo, fingers shaking. “…I’m sorry…” she whispered.

“No!” Jo bolted as Jess abruptly slumped to the floor, the blood pool under her spreading.

Clutching Jess to her chest, Jo cupped her jaw, shaking as she sobbed. “No…”

Jess gurgled slightly, wanting to speak. She wanted to apologize again, she wanted to tell her that she loved her, she wanted another few words to give her lover before it was over and she was gone, but her lungs were filling with blood, and a bloody froth was bubbling out of her lips as she struggled to breathe. 

“Don’t leave me,” Jo begged, gently. 

Her hand lifted slightly, blood stained fingers trembling, then dropped again, and Jess went still in the other’s arms, eyes wide and unseeing.

“No,” Jo sobbed, clutching her closer, rocking back and forth. “No!”

\----

 

__I am here again  
Tied up in your torture frame  
Branded babies guilt to blame  
The story stays the same  
Pry me out  
Run me down  
Burn me up  
Rake it in

Jess’ eyes fluttered open, confused for a moment.

It was dark. Darker than natural, darker than would – should – have been possible, and hotter than seemed bearable as sweat trickled slowly down her spine.

But she was lying on cold metal, so cold it burned.

Recognition made her gut sink, and bile rise in her throat. A familiar face appeared in her sights, and a familiar hated oily voice hissed, “So you’re come back for more, have you?”

Jess screamed, howling for a savior. It had happened once before…

No help came.

\----

 

_ If there’s no one else beside you when your soul departs  
Then I’ll follow you into the dark _

Jo moved through the next week like a zombie.

Police had arrived about twenty minutes later, someone in the building having called them about the breaking glass and the screaming. They’d struggled to tug Jo’s fingers from their almost death like grip on the dead woman’s shoulders, but a Sherriff by the name of Ellen Harvelle that showed up a few minutes later convinced them to let her talk the girl down. As soon as she’d gotten them to head out to get coffee and let her ‘leave her space to work’, Ellen had hustled her daughter and Jess’ cooling body into the hastily painted ‘cop car’ that would never pass inspection.

It had taken some pretty drastic convincing from Ellen and Bobby both, but Jo had finally allowed them to lay Jess’ body on a carefully arranged wooden platform, tightly wrapped in a white sheet. Spreading salt over her body, the three of them had stood there, in silence, watching as the flames licked at the woman, consuming her finally.

The fire burned for over a day and a half, strong and bright til the end. When the flames finally died, Jo’s eyes were dry. She had no tears left.

It was Bobby who suggested the little ceremony. 

Nothing fancy or elaborate, it still meant a lot when the grizzled hunter stood beside the ashes of what had once been the Roadhouse, reading from the Bible. Ellen had planted white lilies, to make a rough grave marker from the flowers and a large stone, and it was Jo who stepped into the ashes of her old home to scatter the ashes of her lover amongst them.

The next morning, Jo set out with a vengeance, and three days later, it was with great pleasure that she killed a hell hound that might or might not have been the one that killed Jess.

That didn’t matter, not really.

Being a hunter, thought… it was not a lifestyle designed for mourning. It was designed for action, frenetic motion. Grief slowed a person down, made them weak. Vulnerable. 

Vulnerability was not something that Jo could afford.

So grief was pushed aside, and she threw herself headlong into fighting the good fight. Besides, things only seemed to get more complicated after Jess’ death – the Winchesters had managed to find the Colt, apparently, then lost it again – and apparently Dean had died the same night as Jess. He came back, four months later, and for a few days after she heard, Jo’s hope had spiked, but the other woman never surfaced.

Then apparently the apocalypse fell upon them, and demon activity shot through the roof, and Jo was forced to move on just so that she wasn’t killed. 

But moving on didn’t mean that it wasn’t Jess who filled Jo’s thoughts as she sat on those dusty hardware store tiles. 

Her stomach was bleeding, blood pouring over the fingers that she had pressed into her skin, trying to stem the flow, and failing. Her mother was beside her, calling her name and trying to call her back to her, but Jo’s mind was no longer on the woman who had birthed her, raised her, loved her. Tried – and failed, now, in the end – to protect her. Her mind was wandering, slipping past the here and now and into the future and what was coming next. She knew it probably wouldn’t be good, that it probably was not pearly gates that were waiting for her, but it was a nice thought anyway. 

Maybe, when she got to hell, she’d get to see Jess. 

Maybe.

Ellen was crying on her, holding her closer, and Jo fell into her, but couldn’t seem to muster the energy anymore to tell her that she was sorry, that she loved her, it was okay. The energy didn’t really seem to be there to blink, either, and finally she gave up trying, and just leaned into her, letting the darkness take over before abruptly there was light, bright bright bright light, and then nothing.

 

__ And Sing of Sweet Surrender.  
  
  
  
[Part Seventeen](http://sparrowshellcat.dreamwidth.org/43428.html)

\----

 

  



	17. sparrowshellcat | And Sing of Sweet Surrender - Part Seventeen

  


  


_ “But moving on didn’t mean that it wasn’t Jess who filled Jo’s thoughts as she sat on those dusty hardware store tiles.” _

Chuck Shurely had to read that line over three times before he finally slumped to sit on the edge of his couch, rubbing his chin again, looking as confused as a man sitting on his couch in a ratty bathrobe with a manuscript and a bottle of Jack Daniels could look, really. He read through the rest of the chapter of the newest book he was writing, Abandon all Hope, again, trying to figure out where this line had come from. Jo’s mind was filled with Jess…? Like… Sam’s dead girlfriend Jess?

Had he written anything like that before?

Trying to figure out when, exactly, lesbian love had infiltrated his writing, Chuck flipped through every book he could remember Jo being in, and finally concluded that this was the first time it had been mentioned.

Looking back at the current book, he considered it for a few minutes, half tempted to call up Dean and ask him what he knew about their now late friend Jo and her maybe having lesbian tendencies when he noticed that there was a weird little thing at the bottom – it was almost like a title. Why had he written that? 

A quick Google later told him exactly why he wrote that.

“And Sing of Sweet Surrender” was a title. It was for, of all things, a fanfiction. For the Supernatural books. His books. He didn’t find the fic itself, but a recommendation for it from someone’s blog, where it was recommended as “And Sing of Sweet Surrender, by xtakeasadsongx. WIP. The untold story of what happened to Jess after she died on the ceiling in book one. Fun read, serious at the end though, oi.”

Funny thing was, it was the username that made him realize what was going on, and sent him scrambling for the bookshelf in the corner of his raggedy living room. His publisher, Sera, kept sending him copies of his books, as though she somehow thought that he really wanted a copy of his books, which wasn’t entirely true – the checks, yes. The books, not so much. Still, there they were, and scooping his copy of Salvation off the shelf, he flicked to the front, to the dedication. Sera asked, for every book, if he wanted to put a dedication into the novel, and he always insisted that no, he did not. So she put them in, to her hearts content, dedicating the books to everyone from her first boyfriend to her mother to – in this particular book – his editor. 

“So take a sad song and make it better. To Hey Jude.” It read.

“…holy crap.” He murmured, and sat in his chair again, considering the computer, and flicked through it, pulling up the livejournal account that the story was on, and settled down, chin in his hand, to read. 

Seven hours later, he wasn’t in front of the computer anymore, but instead standing on his publisher’s doorstep, nervous. He had never actually met the woman who published his books, paid his checks, and for some reason raved about how much she loved his stories and his ideas and his writing. But still he knocked again, and this time, not to meet her, but to meet his editor, of all people. 

The door opened, and a stylish woman in a bob opened it, blinking at him. He must look a mess, all rumpled and dirty and unshaven. “….can I help you?”

“Ah… y-yeah…” he cleared his throat, stepping forward a little. “I’m – I’m a friend of J-Jude’s… is she home?”

She blinked at him.

“…she… does live here, right?” he frowned slightly, afraid he’d read the papers wrong. He might have been wrong. Probably could have been. “I mean… I just wanted to talk to her…”

“She’s here.” She stepped back, and opened the door wider. “Maybe you can get her out of it.”

“….it?” Chuck repeated.

“She’s in a funk.” She muttered, quietly, and led him into the house, past a clean office, then up the stairs to a room at the back of the house, tucked under the eaves of the slanted roof. “There’s this book she’s kind of… obsessed with. I mean, they’re great books, don’t get me wrong, I love them, but…”

“The Supernatural books.”

She turned to look at him, shocked. Damn. He didn’t want to let her know who exactly he was. “How did you know?”

“Um… you have the covers… covers on the wall.” He pointed at one of the framed prints.

She hesitated. “…oh, good point. Right. Well, she’s writing fanfiction for them, and it’s not half bad, really, but… there’s this thing… she killed off one main character, was fine for about two years… and then all of a sudden, she leaves the kitchen in the middle of dinner, writes another chapter, and gets depressed! Goes silent! It’s terrible… I can’t seem to break her out of it… maybe seeing another friend would help.”

“Y-yeah.” He murmured, though he was pretty sure that wasn’t actually likely.

Opening the door, Sera leaned into the darkness, and called, “Jude, you awake?”

“Yeah…” a quiet voice called.

“Your friend Chuck is here… you wanna talk to him?”

“…yeah…” she called again, and Chuck sighed softly in relief. One hurdle breached…

“Call if you need something, anything,” Sera murmured, and flicked the lights on, lighting up the previously dark room, which was a mess. There were papers, everywhere, all balled up and tossed about in every inch of the place. Each piece of paper had hand writing scrawled over it, and there were the empty notebook covers that had once held those papers in the centre of the floor. There was a woman laying on the bed, and she winced when the lights came on, rubbing at the bridge of her nose. “Good luck,” she murmured.

Chuck nodded, and slipped into the room. “Hey, Jude.”

“Lame.” She murmured. “I’ve heard the song lyric joke eight million times before, it’s old.”

“I know.” He sat down on the desk chair, considering her, frowning slightly. “I’ve read your fanfiction, Jude.”

“It’s shit. I’m going to delete it.”

“Don’t.” he shifted closer to her. “I know what it’s like… to… to think you’re wr-writing is crap, really, I do, but… it’s not. It’s pretty good. R-read it all. I like it, actually.”

She reluctantly rolled her head to face him, sitting up slightly. “…really?”

He nodded. “I like the p-p-portrayal of Jess… it’s got real… soul. Understanding of the character.”

“I don’t really write it,” she muttered. “I just… write it down.”

“I know.”

“Yeah right. No one gets it, it’s just stupid, it’s…” Jude sighed, closing her eyes. 

“Look, let me explain. I get it, Jude. I mean… um… m-my name’s Chuck. But… I write too, and… you probably know my other name m-more… I kinda… Carver Edlund.”

She snorted. “Yeah right.”

“Yeah.” He nodded, and shifted closer. “This is it, Jude, I understand, okay? You – you got it right. They’re the W-Winchesters. Jo’s l-last name is Harvelle. Those things weren’t in – in the books, but you and I know… those are their names.”

“You could have gotten that from my fanfic,” she muttered, bitterly.

“You never published the last chapter,” he said quietly, shifting forward slightly to speak lowly, earnestly to her. “But I know how it ends. It ends with Jo dying in a hardware store with her mother by her side, th-thinking of Jess.”

Jude’s face paled. 

“You wrote it.” He murmured. “Right? And never posted it.”

She nodded, eyes wide. “H-how did you know…?”

“I wrote it.” He said quietly, and handed her a sheet of paper. She took it, eyes widening as she read, and Chuck watched her, quietly. “Familiar, yeah?”

“…word for word…” she breathed.

“Yeah,” he nodded. “I know. Apparently… we have… ah… a crossover now. Um. Can I – explain something… that’s… gonna sound c-crazy?”

She nodded, shifting slightly, holding the paper tightly, creasing it in her fingers.

“Do you get h-headaches? Buzzing in the back of your brain, have to drown them in alcohol, you know, like… like sitting down and getting dr-drunk and writing is the only way to make it go away?” He watched until she nodded, then continued. “That’s because… because you’re not really creating it. You’re… you’re… writing down what’s really happening.”

She snorted. “Are you saying that Jess Moore is a real woman who really got pulled out of hell by an angel named Anna?”

Chuck dug in his pocket, and tugged out his cell phone, handing it over. “Look at the contacts.”

She flicked through them for a moment, then hesitated. “You could just be a freak for believing that Sam and Dean are… you know… real.”

“They’re real. I’m… a prophet.”

Jude snorted.

“No really. I’m a prophet. Archangels protect me and everything, cause – cause I write the Gospel of the Winchesters. And… apparently… you’re writing about… Jess.”

The woman paled, and she shifted closer to him. “…Jess is real, too?”

He nodded. 

“And Jo?”

He nodded again.

She wailed, shaking, eyes wide. “I killed real people?!”

“No!” Chuck grabbed her arms. “Jude, look at me. Breathe. You didn’t – you didn’t kill her. You just… wrote about it. Before it happened.” He hesitated. “Okay, I know it sounds bad, but I promise, you’re just… seeing the future.”

“…that’s possible?” she whispered. 

“You write about people who hunt demons, and you want to know if it’s possible for someone to be a prophet?”

Jude slumped back in the bed, gaping at him. 

“Yeah,” he murmured. “I know.”

The silent almost communication between them made it make so much sense, in a way that shouldn’t even work, but it did. He understood the slowly growing horror and realization in her eyes, knew what it was like to be forced to write by a little buzzing in the back of the brain, and then to realize that they were real.

“So… they are dead?” she whispered.

Chuck nodded, quietly. 

“Jess…” she hesitated. “I’ve seen things that none of the characters say, say things that had happened… Jess wasn’t supposed to sacrifice herself to save Sam when he died, was she? She was supposed to convince him not to take Lucifer into him, to be Lucifer’s vessel. Wasn’t she?”

He paused, then nodded.

“So… she needs to… to be saved again.” Jude murmured.

“I guess,” he shrugged. 

“I – I have a question. This may sound stupid. But… are you likely to… to write about Jess and Jo, if they were saved?”

Chuck sighed softly, and whispered. “Look at me, Jude. First… yes. Second… I need to show you something first.”

\----

 

Jude scrambled to her feet, one hand bloody and messy as it hung by her side, the other brushing dust off her knees as she kicked a few more rocks over the little mound of dirt she had made, and looked around, biting her lip.

“A prophet? Well, well… isn’t this a surprise…” 

She spun to face the woman who sauntered up to her, a gorgeous, curvy woman with her dark hair done in tight braids. “Hi.”

“Hi,” she snickered, amused by the greeting, and slowly walked around Jude, considering her. “Mmm. Not much to look at, but that little soul of yours does look… delicious. What can I do for you, my little prophet?”

“I wanna make a deal.” 

The ground seemed to shiver, and the edges of the horizon began to lighten.

“A prophet, trying to make a deal? Damn, this is something I am going to enjoy… I don’t think anyone’s ever gotten a prophet before… I am so making crossroad demon of the year,” she drawled, arching a single brow. “Mmm. What do you want?”

“Jessica Moore and Joanna Harvelle. Alive.”

The ground was really shaking now, gravel skittering away from them. 

“They were both burned.” She frowned. “Salted.”

“Are you saying you can’t do it?” Jude asked, making sure the blood in her hand was still dripping, fresh. 

“I can do it.” She said, firmly.

“Then you can give me what I want. My soul, those two women. Alive. You could do it.”

The demon hesitated. “I could.”

“Then why aren’t we making with the deal?!” she demanded, trembling slightly. “We have to hurry up, okay, or…”

 “Or _what,_ little prophet?” The demon taunted, then hesitated as the sky began to be washed out a solid white as light filled it. “What is – ? No…”

“Dammit. One minute, I promise.” Jude flushed, and tossed her coat, which was lying on the ground, aside, revealing a bloody symbol she had drawn on the road with her own blood. “I am so sorry,” she apologized to the archangel, which was apparently just moments away from arriving, and slapped her bloody hand down on the symbol. There was a flash of even brighter light, almost blinding, then everything went dark again.

“…well. Sending an archangel away so you might make a deal… you’re serious about this, aren’t you?”

Feeling guilty as anything, she slowly stood, and nodded, eyes bright with tears. “Please.”

“But for two women… both burned… you don’t get ten years for that.” The demon crossed her arms, considering her, frowning slightly. “You don’t get a year for that, little prophet girl. You get… mm. Well. Nothing, really. Except for them alive. You really willing to do that?”

“Are you trying to talk me out of selling my soul?” Jude snapped.

The demon barked in laughter, amused. “No, of course not. Just not really wanting a little whiny bitch in hell, either. Got enough of those. Why would you want to sell your soul for them?”

Jude could answer – could give information about how her insignificant life was worth nothing compared to the lives of Jess and Jo. Jess because she was going to save the world, if she could, and Jo… without Jo, Jess might not want to save said world. Those women were important. All she did was write down the events of what they did, and now that Chuck was writing about them for her… what need did the world have for her?

She didn’t answer.

“Fine. Deal’s made,” the woman smirked, and caught the front of Jude’s “Team Alice” t-shirt, tugging her closer and kissing her hard. 

Jude gasped, softly, then when the kiss was finally broken, sighed softly, and slumped to the ground.

“Mmm. Not bad.”

\----

 

__ There is no pain you are receding  
A distant ship, smoke on the horizon.  
You are only coming through in waves.  
Your lips move but I can't hear what you're saying. 

Sam had found the information on the demon case, but it was Dean who realized that they were less than ten minutes from where the Roadhouse had been. It was him who suggested they stop by, to pay their respects to Ash and Jo, even though Sam was usually the sentimental one.

“I half expected someone to clean up this place, after this time,” Dean frowned, climbing out of the car.

“I think they just kinda… left it,” Sam admitted.

“Mm. I guess so, though someone planted flowers,” he walked closer to the ashes, bending to check on the white lilies, which had spread into a sort of rough barrier around the remains of the bar, as though it was a growing, living version of a salt circle. “It’s kinda pretty.”

Sam snorted, then hesitated. “Is there someone over there?”

“Where?” Dean frowned.

He pointed, and his brother narrowed his eyes, trying to see what Sam was pointing at in the bushes. “I don’t see… no wait, you’re right, there’s movement…” he tugged his gun out of the back of his jeans, ready, and headed slowly around the edges of the flower hedge, heading to the bushes.

A moment later, a woman stood from behind the shrubs, flushed, trying to hide the fact that she was naked. “…Dean? Sam? What the fuck is going on here?!”

Dean gaped at her. “Jo?!”

“Yeah, obviously, what am I – what am I doing here, I thought we were in – what’s going on…?”

He scrambled forward, catching her by her elbows, helping her out of the bushes, tugging his jacket off and wrapping it carefully, quickly around the woman he sort of considered to be a little sister, despite everything, trying to keep her safe. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah… I swore I heard…”

Sam spun, tugging his own gun out of his jacket. “There’s someone else over there.”

“Check on them,” Dean tugged Jo up the little ridge, holding her close, protectively. “We can’t let them get her… she got out, Sam…”

He nodded, and the three of them moved closer towards the wreckage, where, of all things, another woman stood, naked as Jo had been, sooty as she stood in the centre of the ashes, wind ruffling her golden hair like a phoenix risen from the ashes. Her jaw was set, and her eyes were blacker than sin, but despite that, Jo cried out in joy, shoving Dean away and dashing to the other woman. Her arms opened, and she gathered Jo against her chest, holding her close, jet black eyes staring the Winchesters down, seriously. 

Dean gaped at the sort of familiar woman, feeling his heart sink. 

Sam gasped. 

“Jess?!”

\----

 

“Did you know about this?!”

Chuck sighed heavily, and slowly slid out of his bed, holding his cell phone to his ear. “Hello to you too, Dean.”

“ _Dude_. _Jess_. What the _hell_?!”

“I think hell has a lot to do with it actually. I – I yeah, okay, I knew. I wrote about it like two weeks ago, along with – some other stuff. Look… I – I don’t think she’s a demon. If that’s what you’re calling to ask about.”

“That was part of it, but no… I meant that she was alive in the first fucking place and that she’s apparently been hunting with Jo for like… four years?”

“Yeah.” Chuck hesitated. “I’ve known for… a few weeks.”

There was a heavy sigh of frustration from the other side of the phone line, then Dean muttered, “And you didn’t think to tell us?”

“I couldn’t. You wouldn’t have – have believed me. Besides I just – just found out myself, someone else was writing about her.” Chuck hesitated. Maybe he shouldn’t have let the cat out of the bag on the whole prophet thing. Shit.

“Wait, another prophet?!”

Yep. Definitely shouldn’t have let the cat out of the bag. Bad idea, Chuck.

“…yeah.”

“I thought you lot were all supposed to be super rare and almost impossible to find, what the _hell_ , there were two of you and you never thought to _say_ anything?”

“Doesn’t matter now,” he murmured. 

“Well, Jess is out of hell, that means this prophet buddy of yours is writing about her again, right?!”

“No. She’s not.” Chuck cleared his throat, then pressed on. “Look, Dean, before you ask, they’re out of hell because a prophet selling their soul at the crossroads can get a hell of a lot of leverage. And she – Jude got a lot of leverage. Now _she’s_ gone, and Jo and Jess are back, okay? I’m sorry. I really am. I shoulda toldja. But – but they’re back and… just listen to ‘em, okay? You know I can’t tell you mor’n that.”

“Yeah. Fine. They gonna be all right?”

“Well… yeah. All right.”

“You know I’m still gonna wanna better explanation later, Chuck.” Dean said, firmly.

“Yeah. I know.” He sighed, glancing over at the computer, and the transcription of just that conversation. He _wasn’t_ looking forward to it.

 

  



End file.
